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The Hollyhock Bed 



A GARDEN 



WITH HOUSE ATTACHED 



By 
SARAH WARNER BROOKS 

AUTHOR OF "MY FIRE OPAL, "POVERTY KNOB, ETC 



" I never had any desire so strong, and so like to 
covetousness, as that one which I have had always, 
that I might be master at least of a small house, and 
a large garden."— Abraham Cowley. 




s^AFrrietveRn^GTi 



BOSTON : RICHARD G. BADGER 

1904 



Copyright 1904 by Sarah Warner Brooks 

All rights reserved y q 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Huceived 

DEC J«0 18U4 

Couvriiiiix entry 

cuss ex. xXc. Not 

COPY B. 



PRINTED AT 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

BOSTON, U. S. A. 



TO MY SUMMER CHILD 



CONTENTS 

Page 

CHAPTER ONE 

A Garden with House Attached . . 5 

CHAPTER TWO 

The Man with the Ploe . . . .10 

CHAPTER THREE 

The " Lady's " Conservatory . . . .14 

CHAPTER FOUR 
The House Garden^ The Selection^ Arrangement, and 

Culture of House Plants . . . ,20 

CHAPTER FIVE 
At Easter-time . . . • .35 

CHAPTER SIX 

Burglar-proof . . . . . .37 

CHAPTER SEVEN 

Perennials . . . . . .40 

CHAPTER EIGHT 

Hollyhocks and Violets . . . .68 

CHAPTER NINE 
The Rose ...... 74 

CHAPTER TEN 
Border Bulbs ...... 84 



Page 

CHAPTER ELEVEN 

Annuals . . . . . .88 

CHAPTER TWELVE 

Climbers . . • . . .94 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

Gardens " in Spain " . . . . .99 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

The Cerebral Processes of Plants • • • ^^8 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

"Auf Wiedersehen " . . . . . 1^5 



A GARDEN WITH HOUSE 
ATTACHED 

CHAPTER I 

^'A Garden with House Attached " 

WHEN, by an unlooked-for sequence of events, 
I became manager of "The Garden with 
House Attached" (as an Important pre- 
liminary) along with "The Third Son" * I went over 
from Cambridge to take account of its possibilities. 
And here be it stated that from the time of his first 
trousers " The Third Son " had been my assistant 
gardener; and in all my horticultural enterprises, 
might still be counted in as " aider and abettor." 

" Mother," said this astute young person — on our 
return from this inspection — "It is a big job; but 
there is yet another week of my vacation. Let us make 
a beginning." 

In shaping the ground plan of this quaint old gar- 
den, its long-dead projectors had shown a capability 
which came within an ace of genius itself! Hence, 
so far as laying out went, there was absolutely no call 
for improvement. 

All had been so well and effectively outlined, that 
the landscape gardener himself must have approved. 

* A nickname suggested by this item in a bill of our German 
cobbler — which ran thus — " To souling shues for Tird sun 50 
sense." 



A Garden with House Attached 



The long South walk — leading past the front door 
of the "Mansion House" — passing orchard and 
kitchen garden on its way up the long, gradual ascent 
towards the western boundary of the estate, and then 
turning a corner, followed the low stone wall hedged 
with sturdy purple lilacs (free to all the country round) 
and making a second turn, skirted the low northern 
ledge, where in June the locust hangs its tassels of per- 
fumed snow, and, in autumn time, the wild barberry 
perfects its coral clusters. There, all summer long, 
the wind blows cool and sweet, and, resting on low, 
mossy boulders, you may sight, on the left, Middlesex 
Fells, and, across the blue distance, glimpse Tufts Col- 
lege on its broad, grassy hill, with the Mystic River 
(if the tide be in) creeping leisurely between you and 
that ancient seat of learning. 

Following the walk down the lazy declivity, you 
take a turn with it beneath two aged pines, with the 
big lily-of-the-valley patch nestling in their shade; 
and (hard by) the well-appointed triangular flower 
plot, from time immemorial "bedded out" with "The 
Lady's " house plants. Turning on your track, you 
take a stroll through "The Lover's Walk" — a little, 
lilac-embowered pathway — and turning, follow, past 
the back of the house, the long, rocky ledge, with its 
glorious crown of white lilac trees — their tall tops 
touching the very ridge-pole of the roof. 

There orange toadstools, like fairy parasols, push 
up through the damp mosses. There a giant Norway 



A Garden with House Attached 



spruce drops its cones and spreads its brown carpet of 
needles; and in summer-time you may dream away the 
hours upon the cool stone steps and, harkening to an 
ancient pine singing its slow song, may 

" Eat of the lotus, and dream, and forget." 

The rough wagon road on the East takes you from 
the high road to the big old-fashioned barn, beneath 
whose eaves, year after- year, the punctual swallow 
nests; while, high among the rafters within, imme- 
morial pigeons rear their toothsome squabs. 

The flower-borders of this garden — anciently edged 
with box (which, of late, gave up, piece by piece, the 
long struggles of existence) — had, no doubt, in their 
prime, been well worth seeing. Lovely blue-eyed Peri- 
winkle yet wandered among the tangled shrubs. A 
persistent Day-lily and a stunted Flowering Almond still 
held their own; and in May-time a single root of double 
English Violet made shift to perfect a scented flower 
or two, — " dim, but sweeter than the lids of Juno's 
eyes." 

Thrifty old-time shrubs still flourished in the wide 
borders. Alicanthus sent far and wide its fruity odor. 
Yellow Globe flowers straggled here and there. Wax- 
berry bushes stoutly thrived, and, in early springtime, an 
aged Pyrrhus Japonica put on its blaze of scarlet bloom. 
Big domes of Tartarean Honeysuckle — all rosy pink 
with bloom — yet held their own. Creamy Syringas 
made sweet the summer air, and as for Lilacs (white 



A Garden with House Attached 



and purple) they were like "the rats of Bingen," 
everywhere — dominating the entire grounds ! 

It was a blessed day for us all when, in the sixteenth 
century, this darling Persian shrub was Introduced Into 
English gardens. In Persia they called It the " lllag " 
(which means simply a flower) and from this we have 
our word Lilac. Surely, "by no other name" — save 
by the dear country one of laylock — would it "smell 
as sweet." 

The native West Indian has a pretty superstition 
In regard to this familiar flower. He holds that lilac 
branches, when In blossom, If hung up around the 
room, protect from malignant influences. He believes 
that the " jumbles," or evil spirits, will not enter a 
house where there are lilac blooms. I like to borrow 
from the pagan this harmless belief ; and, each morning 
throughout their flowering time, I cut big " bowpots " 
of blown lilacs, and setting them about the house. Idly 
fancy that — thus kept at bay — no evil thing "with 
spell or charm " may enter the dear home. And, fur- 
ther to guard it, I have named our place " The Lilacs." 

A garden Is hardly complete without the restful 
shade of trees — the loveliness of Interchanging sun- 
shine and shadow. 

Therefore was It good to find trees, many and 
thrifty, hobnobbing together in our new holding. 

A big sturdy hornbeam, with song-birds nesting 
high among Its branches, shaded the eastern lawn, while 
close beside the kitchen porch a graceful rose-acacIa 



A Garden with House Attached 



reared Its slender trunk, and every May-time wove its 
garlands of rosy bloom. 

All about us grew maple and ash trees. Tall pines 
to hold the song of the wind among their boughs. 
Spruces and Arbor Vitaes (these absolutely upon their 
last legs, but still persistent), and, fairest of them all, 
two glorious tulip-trees towering upward, like sturdy 
masts, towards the blue heaven, flinging to the winds 
their high leafy boughs, like pale green pennants, picked 
out (In blooming time) with shapely miracles of color. 

Here and there an apple or a pear tree had strayed 
from orchard to lawn ; and In the very midst of things 
a huge cherry tree rendered its yearly tale of juicy 
blackhearts — enough and to spare for neighbors and 
robins, and for our own preserve jars. On a bleak 
northern rise behind the house, an ancient juniper (like 
another "Cleopatra's needle") stood slenderly against 
the sky — as perfect a pyramid as If shaped by the 
gardener's shears, Instead of the keen-edged winter 
wind. 



CHAPTER II 

'' The Man with the Hoe " 

AS before our advent at the " Mansion House " 
the man-of-all-work — after a long administra- 
tion of its out-door affairs in the soft service of 
an easily-gratified mistress (the dear "Lady of the 
Wheeled Chair ") had been abstracted from the family 
circle, the first step in our gardening was to call in 
the local " Man with the Hoe." This useful person- 
age (let it here be said) was not — like Mr. Mark- 
ham's terrible hero — "Brother to the ox." His 
" jaw " and " forehead " were all right, and, owing to 
the use of a hoe with proper length of handle, " The 
Weight of the Centuries " had not disturbed the con- 
tour of his back. One could not swear that he knew 
his " Plato " (alas, how few of us do!) and as to " The 
Swing of the Pleiades," it was not his immediate con- 
cern. 

His It was, rather, to interest himself with the hoe- 
ing and edging of graveled walks, the weeding of kit- 
chen and flower-gardens, the pruning of shrubs and 
vines, and the "making of two" lilies "grow where 
but one grew before." And so far from being (like 
Markham's man) " fraught with menace to the uni- 
verse " our "Man with the Hoe" — in that small 
section of It within his immediate radius — was con- 
sidered a positive blessing! Was It not on his good 
right arm that we — " the deserving poor " — to whom 



A Garden with House Attached 



Providence had apportioned vegetable patches, flower- 
borders, and bits of lawn with intersecting graveled 
paths, and denied the luxury of a resident "hired 
man" — depended for the presentability of our "out- 
doors " ? Poor Millet ! one fancies his astonishment 
at Markham's terrible presentation of his peasant 
model ! Himself of their guild, he painted his brother 
peasants in all honesty; and being neither pessimist 
nor anarchist, but working simply from, the standpoint 
of the artist, has so made them immortal. 

But to return to our own undertaking — our first 
task was the dislodgment of the stubborn tangle of per- 
sistent thimbleberry vines, sturdy saplings of ash and 
chestnut, and long-established waxberries. This done, 
we made, on the south, facing the "king's highway" 
and near enough to give delight and perfume to the 
foot-passenger, a brand new flower bed. In the middle 
of each square of lawn a raised circle, edged with 
stone, was made for the spring hyacinths and tulips 
(these to be succeeded later with cannas and bright 
summer flowers) . Relegating the kitchen garden to a 
less conspicuous place, we prepared the cabbage-patch 
for our little rose-garden. All this heavy work done 
— "The Man with the Hoe" was, for the time, dis- 
charged. 

Our Cambridge home had, for nearly two decades, 
been the property of one who in the Harvard Botanical 
Garden had "a friend at court" and had thus found 
it possible to secure for his grounds many choice shrubs 



A Garden with House Attached 



and hardy herbaceous plants. Himself a skilled and 
enthusiastic horticulturist — after twenty years of pains- 
taking cultivation, his garden close, with its mellow 
low-lying site and unobstructed southern exposure, had 
become a miracle of productiveness. 

It had not, like the Medford garden, been " laid 
out." Flowers, fruit, and vegetables, were all in a 
riotous jumble; yet each the perfection of its kind. 
The marvel was that one small garden could carry such 
a load of growth ! 

Pears, early and late, of the juiciest and sweetest; 
big yellow quinces, currants, white and red, raspberries, 
thimbleberries, and blackberries by the bushel ! And 
(crowning glory of all) a huge gravenstein with fruit 
fair as the famous golden apples tended by the 
" Daughters of the Evening Star." To this garden, 
for many years, my good husband had devoted his 
leisure hours. Two years before our removal to " The 
Garden with House Attached" he had left us for 
the far-off Unknown Land; and it was therefore with 
tender touch that we uprooted the shrubs and plants of 
his care — together with the flowers that / had tended. 
The cold frame was full of thrifty seedlings — Prim- 
roses, Iceland poppies, and other beauties. In the open, 
there were Lilies, Peonies — rose-pink and creamy 
white ^ — big Drummond Phloxes, and Roses ad in- 
finitum — two heaped cartloads in all — carried over 
by "The Third Son," and before the earliest frost, so 



A Garden with House Attached 



well bestowed by his able hands, as to have rooted 
themselves in the mellow soil of the new garden. 

Not one of these succumbed to the perils of trans- 
plantation — not even the five-year-old peach tree, 
whose certain dissolution all had prophesied, but which 
bravely withstood the risk of removal, and now, each 
spring, puts on its crown of pink splendor, which duly 
turns to juicy fruit beneath the sun that shines upon the 
grave of him whose hand, long years ago, planted its 
tiny stone. 

Later on, we put in the tulip and hyacinth bulbs, 
and, when at last the entire garden, beneath its warm 
coverlet of dressing and leaves, composed itself for a 
long winter nap — like the poet's "goose-woman" 
— we 

" Blessed ourselves, and cursed ourselves, 
And rested from our labors." 



13 



CHAPTER III 

The "Lady's" Conservatory 

MEANTIME, the dear "Lady" (who had an- 
ticipated our coming to the Mansion House, 
by a sudden resolve to commit her burden of 
housekeeping to younger and abler hands — and re- 
tain of her old establishment but a single personal 
attendant — as faithful friend, companion, and aman- 
uensis) wheeled into the very thick of action — 
had watched with anxious eyes this removal of ancient 
landmarks — this general upheaval of things. An al- 
most helpless invalid — wheeled daily through eight 
patient summers into her beloved garden — she had 
sat with her beautiful silver hair arranged in careful 
curls, a big white sun-bonnet shading her kind old face, 
to receive her friends (both gentle and simple) with a 
cordial hospitality, and an old-time courtesy in fine 
keeping with herself and her surroundings. 

Innately conservative, the Lady was scarce in touch 
with innovation of any sort. A passionate lover of 
flowers, but scantily endowed with horticultural talent, 
and without a spark of creative genius, she smiled with 
dubious complacency on this awful devastation — com- 
forting herself with the sweet anticipation of spring 
tulips and summer roses, in her very own garden ! 
Dear Lady — her absolute trust in my gardening ability 
was indeed touching! One must "live up to the blue 
china " of one's reputation; so I did my very best; and 

14 



A Garden with House Attached 



when all was done, and the out-door darlings nestled 
safely beneath their winter coverlet, came the pleasure 
of looking after the house-plants — (by this time well- 
recovered from the vicissitudes of repotting and re- 
moval) and the bestowal of each in its winter quarters; 
and this leads me to a description of " The Conserva- 
tory." 

In a warm southwestern angle of "The Mansion 
House" there nestled a narrow piazza-like structure — 
opening, by long French windows, from both drawing 
and sitting room, and leading by a short flight of steps 
into the old garden. 

This erection — having been enclosed by sash-work 
of glass — and furnished with rugs, a big easy chair, 
a round table, and a penitential hair-cloth sofa, and 
supplied with rocking' chairs, was, when the tempera- 
ture permitted, the favorite lounging place of family 
and guest. 

Though warmed only by the sun, it had always been 
known as "The Conservatory" (probably because 
herein every autumn, the Lady's geraniums and fuch- 
sias, taken in from the early frost, stood on the corner 
table, recovering from the fall potting on their way to 
winter quarters on the broad ledge of a sunny south 
window of her own bed chamber). Through the 
winter this unwarmed place was neither available for 
plant or man. 

Long before the possibility of ever moving to the 
Mansion House had entered my head, I had looked 

15 



A Garden with House Attached 



upon this conservatory with loving eyes, and, in fancy, 
pictured it, warmed and filled all winter long with 
lovely flowering plants. 

A Conservatory had been the dream of my life! 
And when this fell to my lot, and, abolishing the stuffy 
cylinder stoves that had, heretofore, warmed the Man- 
sion House, we put in a big furnace, I had directed the 
leading of a roomy pipe to this glass-enclosed quarter, 
and the out-door work well over, I pleased myself with 
arranging this new winter home for my darlings. The 
light sashes — warped by Time — had become " ram- 
shackly," I wedged them securely, and stuffing gaps 
with cotton batting carefully listed the outer door 
against 

"The west wind Mudjekeewis," 

and when all was done delightedly watched the vigorous 
growth of my well-housed darlings. Alas! short and 
sweet was my day of content. 

One fatal January night the mercury dropped sud- 
denly to zero, and (as luck would have it) the furnace 
fire followed suit, and, in the morning, I awoke to find 
my precious plants stark and stiff against the panes. 

We promptly showered them with ice-cold water 
("a hair of the dog that bit you" advises the old 
proverb). In vain! The blighted foliage stood black 
and shriveled in the morning sunshine ! 

" All the King's horses and all the King's men 
Couldn't bring Humpty Dumpty up again ! " 

All that could be done was to clip away the frost- 

i6 



A Garden with House Attached 



bitten members, mellow the soil, and await a fresh 
supply of sap from the uninjured roots. 

As a matter of course the slowly recuperating plants 
could no longer be left to the random winter gambols 
of tricky " Mudjekeewis," but must be relegated to the 
old-time safety of window-seat and flower-stand. 

Thus ended my day-dream of a conservatory ! 

Under this dispensation I consoled myself by nurs- 
ing the invalids back to health and comparative pros- 
perity, and, in late February, they amply repaid my 
care by abundant leafage and wealth of bloom. 

Meantime, the Freesias, and Narcissi, the Hya- 
cinths and Tritelias, came one after another from the 
dark cellar, to sit in the sun, and cheer our wintry days 
with odor and bloom, and give delight to the dear in- 
valid Lady. 

And here let me say that of all winter gardening I 
have found the house cultivation of bulbs most interest- 
ing and repaying. 

First there is the eager looking over the autumn 
catalogues and the well-considered selection of your 
bulbs. If your purse is long enough to warrant it, you 
may put on your list the costly named varieties of your 
favorite colors among the hyacinths; if otherwise, you 
may still have the satisfaction of making a dollar or 
two go a long way; since after putting on your list a 
few choice bulbs, you get, at the department store, 
oceans of five-cent hyacinth bulbs, and, taking your 

17 



A Garden with House Attached 



chance as to color, have the added pleasure of the sur- 
prises thus secured. 

As the other desirable bulbs are comparatively in- 
expensive, you can finish your list from the catalogue, 
and thus have as many as you desire. 

The Oxalis has, presumably, been saved over from 
last winter's stock, and so, too, have the best of the 
Freesias. These are, no doubt, well-started about the 
first of September. 

Early in October some of the newly bought Free- 
sias and some of all the other bulbs may be planted. 
The remainder may be potted in instalments, two or 
three weeks apart, the last as late as December. You 
may use for hyacinths, at a pinch, quite small pots — 
say four-inch ones ; but success is more certain in the 
five or six-inch sizes. The smaller bulbs may be planted 
in clumps in such sized pots as you like, about two 
inches apart. You may use prepared soil furnished 
very reasonably by the florist, or, if preferred, prepare 
it yourself after this formula : one-half mellow garden 
loam, one-quarter well-rotted cow manure, and for the 
remaider use leaf-mold, well-pulverized peat, and a 
good trowel-full of fine beach sand. Bulbs, though 
needing rich food, should never come directly in contact 
with their manure supply. 

In potting the larger bulbs leave about quarter of 
an inch above ground, but entirely bury the smaller 
ones. 



i8 



A Garden with House Attached 



The big bulbs should be pressed firmly down, as 
they have a way of working up from the covering soil. 

Water well, and set in a cool, dark cellar. The 
oxalis and freesia sprout more quickly, and must not 
be left to send long pale shoots up in the dark, but the 
hyacinths and narcissi, though promised in six weeks, 
are often two months, and even longer, getting ready 
to come into the light. 

This should be done with caution, as they must first 
be greened in a shaded window, and not until later 
exposed to the direct beams of the sun. They may be 
given water in moderate supplies, and I have some- 
times found a weekly allowance of " Bowker's Flower 
Food " desirable. 

My own selection of house bulbs usually comprises 
oxalis, freesia, the narcissi, hyacinth, and tritelia; many 
other desirable ones are to be had, but with a good 
supply of the above-named varieties, including a gen- 
erous number of such inexpensive bulbs as the Paper- 
white Narcissus, and the Yellow " Daffies," one may 
count on a sweet succession of bloom from Christmas to 
May-time. 

In this connection I add a reprint of a paper long 
ago published in the "American Garden." 

It was originally prepared by me for the " Cam- 
bridge Plant Club," whose members were so kind as 
to assure me that they found it helpful and entertaining. 
It was copied from the " Garden " by the Cambridge 
Tribune, but may, nevertheless, be new to the present 
reader: 

19 



CHAPTER IV 

The House Garden. The Selection, Arrangement, 
and Culture of House Plants 

APART from that gesthetic satisfaction which 
house plants afford, the principle of growth, 
which they exemplify, has its own strong and 
almost universal attraction. Thus it is that we behold 
in dust-blurred windows of squalid tenements rows of 
dented tomato cans, desolately holding their stunted 
geraniums, fuchsias, and other feeble bits of greenery. 
Such half-pathetic attempts at floriculture are, indeed, 
" touches of nature " that " make us kin " to the forlorn 
inmates of these shabby, ill-conditioned dwellings who, 
amid poverty and its possible degradation, have still 
courage for, at least, one fine endeavor. 

The sole purpose of this paper is to impart some 
simple knowledge gained through a long and earnestly- 
loving experience in the beautiful art of plant-culture. 
Our first step is the choice of our plants ; and we shall 
do wisely to select such as will best accommodate them- 
selves to the somewhat adverse conditions of furnace- 
heated and gas-lighted rooms such as most of us oc- 
cupy. First and foremost in our collection should stand 
sweet-scented plants; not only because these impart to 
our rooms a delicious air of summer, and etherealize 
the atmosphere of our homes, but also because of their 
sanitary value, medical authority having distinctly de- 



A Garden with House Attached 



clared that the perfume of growing flowers, exhaling 
on the In-door air, tends to neutralize fever and other 
disease-germs. For delicacy of perfume and continuity 
of bloom the heliotrope may take the first rank among 
odorous house plants. Its very name — derived from 
two Greek words, Hello, the sun, and trope, to turn — 
Is charmingly suggestive of summer-time. The plant 
does not belle Its name. It cannot have too many sun- 
kisses. As a cut-flower It Is perishable and unsatisfac- 
tory, but Its growing bloom lasts long, and holds Its 
odor even In decay; It Is delightful up to Its very last 
breath. 

To secure good winter bloom from the heliotrope, 
begin in early summer with the plant while In the 
ground, and by repeated pinchlng-back make It sturdy 
and robust. This done, choose some cloudy afternoon, 
about the middle of August, for potting. Your soil 
should be thus prepared: one-third good loam, one- 
third leaf-mold, and one-third well-rotted manure; a 
few pinches of soot may be added, and enough white 
sand mixed through the whole to keep It light and 
dainty. Pot carefully, and with as little root disturb- 
ance as may be. Water thoroughly, and keep the plant 
in shade until its leaves recover their tone. After this 
it may stand in the sun. If given plenty of water, for a 
week or two, while the buds get under way. 

Be sure to house before the faintest suspicion of 
frost, as this sun-lover Is extremely tender, and the 
slightest nipping harms It. Give it a southern exposure 



A Garden with House Attached 



in your room, and place close to the glass; and if you 
have not a double window, leave the fly-screen in to 
save the leaves and blossoms from immediate contact 
with frosty panes. A heliotrope should never once 
become wholly dry, and should have a weekly drink of 
manure-water, which must be about the color of mod- 
erately strong coffee. For insect pests, dust the leaves 
with a light feather-brush, and then wash thoroughly. 
This process must be repeated as often as the Insects 
appear. 

The odorous sacred lily of China we all, no doubt, 
grow yearly in water, with a bottom layer or two of 
pebbles. It is well to make incisions lengthwise of the 
bulb with a sharp knife before planting, and there 
should be lumps of charcoal among the pebbles to keep 
the water sweet. A single bulb, thus treated, will give 
one seven flower-stalks. The old-fashioned plant, the 
calla, though less common than it was twenty years 
ago, if grown in an artistic vase and given an entire 
window, is beautiful. 

It has been said of the calla that " it needs water 
like a mill, heat like a furnace, food like an army, and 
absolute rest during the summer." " Keep its feet in 
water," says the florist. In its native habitat it is in 
water to the depth of a foot or more, in broad open 
sunlight, and in soil as rich as decayed vegetation can 
make It. Soon after flowering season the water sub- 
sides, and the soil becomes as dry as it Is possible to 
get in the tropics. Here, nature teaches us how to 



A Garden with House Attached 



cultivate the calla. The canna thrives admirably as a 
house plant, and has a happy way of accommodating 
itself to circumstances, which makes it especially de- 
sirable for decorative effect. In a sunny window it 
will flower all winter if given abundant heat. In a 
north window of the same room it will give one beau- 
tiful foliage, and it will, " at a pinch," take a back seat 
and hold its own in the shade, grouped with the statu- 
ary and screens, where, with its large, handsome leaves, 
it will impart to the drawing-room a certain air of 
oriental languor and magnificence. The canna should 
be lifted early in September and placed in rich loam, 
in a large, well-shaped pot or vase, and kept for a week 
or two in the open, in partial shade, and well watered. 
It must be carefully housed before the lightest frost 
appears. Its vigor and beauty are increased by the 
addition of wood soot to the soil. 

All the begonias thrive well as house plants. My 
experience with the new and choice varieties has not 
been sufficient to enable me to give valuable advice in 
regard to their culture. I had formerly supposed that 
a north window might suit a begonia. It was a mis- 
taken impression. The plant, I find, needs sunlight 
and a warm atmosphere. It must be regularly and 
carefully watered, and I have found it best to give the 
small-leaved begonia its water from the saucer. The 
smooth-leaved begonias are said to affect a Sunday 
morning cup of coffee by way of gloss to their foliage. 
I have seen a superb one thus treated, but have never 

23 



A Garden with House Attached 



tried the experiment. The plant likes an occasional 
watering with soot tea while making its summer growth 
in the garden. 

The coleus, as a window plant, affords fine color 
effects, but the plant is too tender to be agreeable for 
house-culture. It requires an invariably high tempera- 
ture, a fair amount of sunlight, regular moisture, and 
very rich soil. This given it will grow superbly, but if 
overtaken, in some unguarded hour, with the slightest 
chill, it loses its beauty and vigor. The house coleus 
is almost sure to become infested with mealy-bugs. 
These may be picked off, and thereafter the plant should 
be given a careful wash of kerosene water, which must 
be repeated as often as the pests appear. The formula 
for this spray, which is used for roses at Mount Au- 
burn, was thus given me by an expert. It is simply 
one wine-glass of kerosene oil to a gallon of water. 

Ferns, as decorative plants, are beautiful and easily 
grown, though all do not succeed with the maiden- 
hair. All ferns should have an abundance of light, 
but not too much sun. I have found an eastern 
exposure the very best possible. Ferns should be 
placed in the full light of a window, given a 
high temperature and watered evenly, but not too 
much. The soil should be partially renewed an- 
nually, and care should be taken with the roots, which 
do not like disturbance; especially is this to be observed 
with the maidenhair, which, if possible, should never 
be transplanted, and should have its stated period of 

24 



A Garden with House Attached 



entire rest, during which it should be kept almost dry. 
The fuchsia is, properly, an out-door bloomer, but with 
care can be brought to flower in winter. To this end, 
pinch back in summer, and in September house, and 
place in a north or east window. Give much light, 
water freely with warm water, and give liquid manure 
and soot tea about twice a week. If given an entire 
window both flower and foHage will be superb, with 
this treatment. Time would fail me to enumerate all 
the desirable plants for house-culture; there is the 
orange tree, the costly palm, the delicate asparagus, 
the achyranthes, anthericum, and curculigo, the aspi- 
distra, cyclamen, and many more equally beautiful and 
practicable, and last, but not least, the inevitable rubber 
plant, a little stiff and heavy perhaps, but as a single 
plant decidedly effective. In arranging a table or stand 
of mixed plants, care should be taken to give each its 
proper growing place without marring the general 
effect. Heliotrope, that ardent sun-lover, should have 
the front row, close to the window-glass. Beside it 
should sit a begonia or two, and some flowering gera- 
niums. A petunia and a bridal-rose might come next 
— the petunia twined among the others to hide its 
scraggy limbs. A nicotiana, well in the light, might 
make the evenings sweet with its perfume, and if the 
room be not over-warm, a pot of mignonette might 
sweeten the air by day, and at night be removed to 
cooler quarters. In the "middle aisle" an achyranthes 
or two may stand with sunlight sifting through its 

25 



A Garden with House Attached 



fiery leaves, which have thus all the color-effect of 
blossoms without their perishability. Further back, 
anthericum may flourish, with curculigo spreading 
queenly its fluted palm-like leaves, and always craving 
moisture. And in the " pauper's pew " Wandering Jew 
will contentedly sit, like charity, kindly covering the 
entire defects of staring pots that needs must hold its 
betters; arid on the floor, at the foot of all, aspidistra 
may seem to " choose darkness rather than light." If 
you need a growing amaryllis or two to eke out your 
foliage display, they will take a shady place, though 
to bring them into flower you need a strong, steady 
sunlight. 

Nicotiana, or tobacco plant, is another fragrant 
and desirable plant. It thrives in about the same soil 
as the heliotrope, but needs an entirely different ex- 
posure, being one of the few plants that flower perfectly 
in a sunless window. Experimenting with the nicotiana 
as a house plant, I found that in a south window the 
plant was not robust, was scant of bloom, and the 
flowers quite perishable In comparison with the blos- 
soms In a north window, where the plants grew to a 
height of more than five feet, and, together, produced 
one hundred and fifty-six flowers. Through the entire 
winter no ray of sunlight reached them. They were 
trained on stout strings quite close to the glass of a 
double window, kept moist, and given an even tempera- 
ture of from sixty-five to seventy degrees, and were 
watered well with liquid manure. 

26 















The Circle on the Lawn 



A Garden with House Attached 



At evening the blossoms expand, and all through the 
night it is as if the room were 

" Perfumed from an unseen censer, swung by angels." 

Among the sweet-scented tribe mignonette ranks 
high as an out-door plant, and as a window bloomer it 
is exquisite. It rarely outlives transplanting, but may 
be sown in pots about mid-summer, and pinched back 
for the house. Another method is to obtain the plant 
from the florist when in bud. The cost is trifling, and 
if kept cool and in a sunny window, it will continue in 
bloom for weeks. Mignonette needs much sunlight, 
but not too high a temperature, and the plant is much 
weakened by a single day's omission in watering. 

Another — now almost obsolete — fragrant house 
plant is the night-blooming jasmine. Its odor is pe- 
culiar and intense, and — as its name implies — is only 
emitted by night. Its foliage is not especially delicate, 
but nothing can be more dainty than its slender spikes 
of pale, greenish-white bloom. It is a thrifty plant, 
making in a single summer a growth of five or six feet. 
It is a shrub, but one could fancy that, ages ago, it must 
have been a " sport " of a climber, so slender and rapid 
is its habit of growth. After flowering-time, which 
begins late in July and continues until late in October, 
it drops most of its foliage, which is soon replaced by 
young, delicate shoots and fresh leaves and buds. 

The Daphne odora, which combines in its small clus- 
ters of bloom the exquisite perfume of many sweet flow- 
ers, may not be lightly passed by. It is not an easy plant 

27 



A Garden with House Attached 



to manage, and often drops Its buds just as they seem 
ready to open. By placing it in the sunny window of 
a cool room, and watering evenly and not too copi- 
ously, it may be brought into flower; and then nothing 
can be finer than its fragrance. 

The more homely and familiar hyacinth is not 
only delightful in form, color, and odor, but may be 
recommended as a " safe investment," as it seldom fails 
to flower and needs comparatively little care. 

The mahernia is another desirable fragrant plant. 
It is very effective in a hanging-basket. It comes in 
flower about the first of February, and its tiny yellow 
cups are brimful of delicious odor. A home-bred ma- 
hernia makes fine foliage, but seldom blooms abun- 
dantly; it is, therefore, best to procure the plant from 
the florist when fully budded. It will then flower well 
in a sunny window, and for three or four weeks one's 
room will be as sweet as summer. The wax-plant, 
though properly a summer-blooming plant, sometimes 
flowers in winter. Its blossoms are very odorous, es- 
pecially by night, and in structure and color they are 
exquisite. It is a long-lived plant, easily raised and 
tended, and, being a climber, may be tastefully trained 
on a trellis, where, with its glossy, rubber-like leaves, 
it is very effective. The petunia, as a window plant, 
blooms freely, and the white variety is fragrant — 
especially by night. The plant is rather ungainly in 
its habit of growth. To conceal its scragginess of 
structure twine its stems among other foliage on your 

28 



A Garden with House Attached 



stand, and place it close to the glass, and you will find 
it pretty and effective. And now that sweet-smelling 
plants are under consideration, may I not give you the 
details of an experiment with the common lilac as a 
house plant? It was made some fifteen years ago, and 
before I had the slightest knowledge of lilac-forcing, 
which is now quite common among our florists. 

Early in December a stout, low bush of the hardy 
purple variety was, with the aid of a pickaxe, dislodged 
from the frost-bound earth, and with its frozen ball of 
sod still adhering, thus treated : a large nail-keg, having 
an auger-hole in its bottom on which some bits of crock 
were strewn, was filled to about half its depth with warm 
stable manure; on this the dry leafless bush, with its 
frozen soil, was set, and the keg filled in with mellow 
loam. After a good watering, the keg was placed in 
a deep pan, which was then filled with boiling water, 
and the whole set near a huge hall stove. The hot 
water was daily renewed at the bottom, and before 
many days leaf and flower-buds began to swell on the 
hard, bare stems of the bush. When these were well 
formed and the tiny buds quite distinguishable among 
the pale green foliage, the lilac was removed from its 
dim corner beside the stove, and given an entire east 
window in the long hall, where the temperature ranged 
from forty to sixty, and sometimes as high as seventy 
degrees. In about two months from the time of hous- 
ing fourteen large and perfect clusters of pearl-white 
lilacs rejoiced our eyes. These blossoms were far more 

29 



A Garden with House Attached 



delicate in odor than out-door Klacs, and made a de- 
lightful atmosphere of spring-time in the homely old 
farm-house which was then our dwelling-place. We 
had, too, the novel pleasure of surprising our friends 
with clusters of fresh lilac in February. 

French florists, who give much attention to lilac- 
forcing, lay great stress upon the necessity of keeping 
the bush in the dark in order to bleach the flowers — 
white lilacs being most marketable, and the common 
purple lilac most available for forcing on account of 
its superior vitality. Fortunately I stumbled upon the 
right treatment, and mine seemed to come white of 
their own sweet will. 

For a hanging-basket use the oxalis, of which there 
are many beautiful varieties. It flowers abundantly, 
but as the season advances, must be stimulated with 
repeated applications of liquid manure and soot tea, 
that its foliage may not lose Its vigor and become 
straggly. Wandering Jew, though structurally coarse, 
is a good hanging plant, and will accommodate itself 
to any exposure, really doing its very best in a north 
window. Ivy geranium is another hanging plant, beau- 
tiful in structure, and with its double rose-pink blos- 
soms, as in the improved varieties, most fair to see. 
It demands strong food, much moisture, and oceans of 
sunlight. Madeira vine and German ivy both make 
effective hanging-baskets. The latter is too alluring 
to the green fly to make its house-culture easy or satis- 
factory. Smilax, if trained on strings, in a sunny win- 

30 



A Garden with House Attached 



dow, Is exquisitely delicate, and its blossom is odorous. 
The English ivy, as In-door greenery, Is delightful. 
I have attempted its culture, but my experience being 
but a series of Ignoble defeats, Is not commendable. I 
wish It were ! The odious scale has at last compelled 
me to abandon the field. I must also confess to repeated 
failure with in-door geraniums. Mine have not 
bloomed well, and a geranium without Its blossoms is a 
poor affair (not including the scented varieties). Last 
autumn, after having tried many methods with many 
kinds, I turned over a new leaf In geranium culture. 
All my best geraniums were consigned to an upper 
room, where no furnace heat could reach them,,- and 
where, In cold nights, the temperature falls perilously 
near to freezing point. The plants have a southern 
window, and through the day the room is moderately 
warmed from the ascending heat of the kitchen. Ge- 
raniums (and fuchsias and nasturtiums as well) have 
taken kindly to this low temperature, the geraniums 
blooming as finely as in the open during summer. Many 
of us have, no doubt, seen floating about in print, the 
little story of that pot of geranium which was the sole 
bequest of a dying man to his family, who carefully 
tended this precious, though not pecuniarily valuable 
legacy. When spring came the pot was reverently 
committed to the cemetery lot to summer close beside 
the grave of the burled husband and father. On re- 
moving it In autumn, the plant was found to have out- 
grown Its quarters, and was tenderly dislodged for 

31 



A Garden with House Attached 



repotting. To the great surprise of these good people 
a hollow false bottom was found in the original pot, 
and on its removal a little fortune in bank notes was 
disclosed, which, as the story ran, had obligingly kept 
themselves intact for the heirs in this odd storing- 
place. This tale has been cited of late by a scientific 
floriculturist, as evidence of the deplorable ignorance 
of the common mind in regard to absolutely necessary 
conditions for growth demanded by a plant. "A gera- 
nium," he authoritatively tells us, " cannot exist without 
drainage, hence an account which asserts that one has 
for months survived the ordeal of a tight-bottom pot 
can have no foundation in fact." So we have been 
taught, but, alas for the infallibility of time-honored 
theories ! In the material world new discoveries are 
continually upsetting old conclusions; and we are now 
told that our geraniums and fuchsias have a natural 
affinity for tight-bottomed tomato cans ! The finest 
geranium in my present collection has the proud dis- 
tinction of growing in a water-tight lard kettle. Though 
a young and blooming plant, it was held in light esteem 
by its owner because of a vicious tendency to magenta, 
and in the autumn, no pot being at hand, was given 
this apparently thin chance of survival. Not only has 
it carried its buds and blossoms straight on through the 
entire winter, but it has graciously overcome its per- 
versity in the matter of color, changing from a glaring 
magenta to a deep and lovely rose. In the same group 
Is a large white geranium three years old, which, after 

32 



A Garden with House Attached 



blooming all summer in the garden, has never once, 
throughout the winter, been out of bud and blossom. 
This well-behaved plant grows in an old butter tub 
which stands squarely on its " own " sound " bottom," 
unmutilated by gimlet or auger. The plant had, in late 
winter, ten clusters of bud and bloom, while its small 
neighbor of the lard kettle had six. A nasturtium., in 
the same window, flowers abundantly, and a fuchsia 
beside it is a paragon among plants. All these have 
had weekly applications of manure water and soot tea, 
and have not been kept over-wet. Especially is this 
true of the geraniums — which may, perhaps, partly 
explain their dispensing with drainage. The finest hya- 
cinth I have ever grown in the house perfected in a 
handleless fancy pitcher which had no outlet at the 
bottom. Having no pot of the right size, some lumps 
of charcoal were thrown into this make-shift affair, the 
soil tossed in, and the bulb, not without serious mis- 
givings, carefully planted. It flowered late, but its 
foHage was abundant and its bloom exquisite. It gave 
me five perfect rose-colored spikes. These all, in com- 
mon with my other plants (excepting ferns and aspi- 
distras) were well fed with liquid manure and soot 
tea, and, in potting, a little wood ashes was added to 
the soil. 

That very old-fashioned plant, the bridal-rose, is 
a free winter bloomer, and has a kindly way of sending 
up a perpetual supply of shoots for one's neighbors 
and friends. But, taking roses altogether, they are not 

33 



A Garden with House Attached 



profitable house plants. The constant battle with insect 
pests is fatiguing, and one cannot spray and fumigate 
and spray and fumigate incessantly, as the florist does. 
Now and then, after hard labor, virtue has its reward 
in the shape of an exquisite rose or two, but even then, 
" the play is scarce worth the candle." 

The same may be said of carnations, which not only 
teem with insects, but require a much lower temperature 
than we have in our living rooms, as also do winter 
violets. 

As to the finer uses of house plants, I have but time 
to suggest, in conclusion, that whoever cultivates them 
from sheer material satisfaction in their growth, from 
mere pleasure in their structural perfection, or with an 
eye single to their market value (as a florist naturally 
must), overlooking their poetical — I had almost said 
their religious side — has grasped but a small portion 
of the delight to be derived from floriculture, and has 
wholly missed that divine inspiration, that mental help, 
which emanates from, "a thing of beauty" and makes 
it " a joy forever." 



34 



CHAPTER V 

At Easter-time 

APRIL was two weeks old. Already Passion- 
week had come. Easter-time would soon begin. 
Crocuses dotted the short new grass on the lawn. 
Mated robins chose nesting places in the old orchard, 
and the big cherry tree had put on its crown of snow- 
tipped buds. 

On that cheery spring morning — wheeled out for 
her daily airing — "The Lady" looked expectantly at 
the bulbs' circles, where the newly uncovered hyacinths 
and tulips — pushing vigorously up for the sun's warm 
kisses — already showed bud and leaf of pale tender 
green. 

Dear patient Lady ! Would that God had spared 
her to see another " Spring put on its bloom," but ere 
the day had done He called her to the 

" Immortal gardens where angels are the wardens." 

With scarce a pang, her tired old heart ceased 
jDeating. 

It had been the fancy of this dear cousin of my hus- 
band to select me among her relatives as the superin- 
tendent of her funeral — to "lay her away," as she 
quaintly expressed it — and it had long been impressed 
upon me that I must " save myself " for that responsi- 
ble trust. Often when I came over from Cambridge 
to share her mid-day meal, she looked compassionately 

35 



A Garden with House Attached 



at my tired face, as I arranged the big basket of flowers 
brought for her vases (among which she especially 
doted on the pansies, with their charming variety of 
color), and holding up a warning finger, said discour- 
agedly: "Cousin, you over-work. Take more rest, 
or you will pass on before me, and then, who will lay 
me away? " 

And so it was, that on Easter Sunday — not alto- 
gether without that " pomp and circumstance " which, 
from time immemorial, had attended the Mansion 
House funerals — I arranged her burial. With the 
sweet spring air coming In at the open sunny window — 
flowers perfuming and brightening the house and 
clasped loosely in her folded hands, and with so sweet 
a smile upon her lips that It half seemed a welcome 
to the neighbors and friends who looked their last upon 
her benignant face, still untouched by " the finger of 
decay" — I gave her grudgingly to the cold dark 
grave, where among her dear kindred (In a self-chosen 
site) we laid her — " ashes to ashes, dust to dust." 

The simple head-stone appointed by herself marks 
the spot; it holds this tender legend, prepared by one 
who knew her: 

" Her life was sweet with charity and patience." 
I like to fancy her " homing shade " still. In the 
long summer afternoons, haunting the old garden of 
her love ; watching, as of old, the flitting of butterflies, 
listening to the glad singing of birds, and marking upon 
the lawn the lovely shadows lengthen In the west'rlng 
sun. 

" Only the forgotten are dead." 
36 



CHAPTER VI 

Burglar-proof 

THAT strain in the New England make-up which 
manifests Itself in " taking care of things " ran 
in the blood of the dear Lady. 

Her provident forbears — intent upon " getting the 
best" of any burglar bent upon the acquisition of the 
family silver — had protected many of the first floor 
windows with prison-like bars of iron. Later on, when 
the " Conservatory," with its long southern exposure 
of glass, had been added to the Mansion, there arose 
the necessity of some invincible protection of that 
quarter from midnight prowlers. 

To this end, Jacobs — the family carpenter — was 
called in. This good man having constructed six stout 
wooden trellises — all precisely alike — they were set 
along the southern flower border, giving upon the ex- 
posed glass stretch of conservatory. 

In front of these trellises were planted six thrifty 
young "Akebia Quinata" vines — funereal of flower, 
and dense and clover-like in foliage. These greedy 
feeders, gradually crowding out the more dainty flow- 
ering perennials, were ultimately joined by a tangled 
growth of coarse encroaching shrubs and vigorous self- 
sown saplings, the whole interlaced by a strong poison- 
ivy vine. 

Meantime, the outer door of the conservatory had 
but the protection of a common lock, at which, as we 

37 



A Garden with House Attached 



all know, any enterprising burglar would derisively snap 
his capable fingers. Be that as it may, the dear Lady 
found in this leafy barricade her chief defense against 
midnight robbery. 

Now that the conservatory was to be widened and 
made into a piazza — early one May morning, dur- 
ing the "Third Son's" week of vacation, he put his 
capable shoulder to the wheel, along with that of the 
"Man with the Hoe" — who, like the Sexton in Cock 
Robin, equipped with " his little spade and shovel," fell 
upon this tangled border. 

Although in most respects a very lion of valor, the 
" Man " would run like a frighted girl from a troop 
of Yellow Jackets — and before Poison Ivy he "shook 
in his shoes." 

So work was delayed while he went for his pruning 
gloves, and thus armed and equipped, came stoutly to 
the onset. 

And now carefully removing the few bulbs of Japan 
Lily that year after year found strength to hold their 
own on the outskirts of this jungle, the two fell mightily 
on the trellised vines, the shrubs, the young trees, and 
the insidious ivy, and when the town clock that day told 
the hour of noon, the " burglar barricade " was among 
the things that had been, and were not; and the un- 
harmful ashes of poison ivy lay blackened on its 
funeral pyre. Since the dear Lady had gone where the 
burglar ceases from troubling, we held it no disrespect 
to her honored memory to demolish the "barricade" 

38 



A Garden with House Attached 



preparatory to the widening of the old conservatory, 
and the turning of the whole into a roomy piazza — 
where, all summer long, one may take after-dinner 
coffee and naps, may read, write, and sew, have after- 
noon tea with friend or neighbor — breathing, mean- 
time, invigorating out-door air. 

And now began the earnest work of " putting to 
rights" the entire garden; and if In this little account 
of that undertaking (without adding one iota to the 
reader's botanical knowledge) I may furnish some use- 
ful hints to the amateur, and may, incidentally, enter- 
tain with such various bits of Information in regard to 
the works and ways of flowering plants, the origin and 
fitness of their names, and their relations to human life, 
as come of the " reading of many books," and so en- 
courage In my fellow-woman that habit of spending 
much time "with body and with spirit," In "God's 
out-of-doors," which Is one of Van Dyke's beautiful 
steps " In the footpath of peace," my end in making 
this book will be well attained. 



39 



CHAPTER VII 

Perennials 

TO begin with the hardy perennials — which, to 
be effective, should be in a border of their own. 
At the outset, this should be made free of 
stones, then mellow the earth as far down as two feet. 
At the bottom put in about one foot of well-seasoned 
manure. Now add leaf-mold, a little peat, a sprinkling 
of wood ashes, and a top layer of sifted garden loam. 
If the soil be clayey, add some fine pure sand, to keep 
it friable. 

Seeds of perennials are naturally slow in germi- 
nating — their time of coming up being a period vary- 
ing from one week to two months. It may here be 
stated that all perennial plants undergo a period of 
rest. It is not certain that this "rest" is in any sense a 
recuperation. It is supposed to be a hereditary trait 
induced by natural environment — a means by which 
the plant resists untoward circumstances of climate. In 
the tropics, plants rest during dry seasons, in much the 
same manner as during our Northern winters. 

Investigations — so far — show that this heredi- 
tary trait has not been entirely overcome by culture. 
Any attempt of the cultivator to ignore this resting 
period is apt to injure the plant, from the fact that any 
energy used in abnormal development may be sub- 
tracted from subsequent growth or development. 

Before I had taken this " old-time garden " in hand 

40 



A Garden with House Attached 



— fashioning new borders, and freeing the old from 
encumbering jungles — many plants, both annual and 
perennial, had, no doubt, found place in it as before 
stated. Groups of blue-eyed periwinkle still held their 
own among usurping forces. A discouraged day-lily 
looked forlornly out of the tangle, where year by year 
a courageous double English violet shyly perfected a 
blossom or two. Here and there a straggling bush of 
blush roses reached out for the June sunshine, and, to 
my delight, I found — half strangled among the over- 
growth — my old acquaintance, a pink flowering al- 
mond. The dear old thing was " on its last legs." We 
carefully removed it to kindlier quarters. 

Straightway it took heart, and sending up new green 
shoots, gave us, that very year, upon " the parent stem " 
a tuft or two of rosy bloom. 

Now, after ten years of high living, it has become 
an illustrious shrub ; and to sit in the old garden in the 
May-time while the shadows and sunshine dance together 
on the lawn and vernal odors sweeten all the air, 
watching the long pink wreaths of flowering almond 
sway in the south wind, is to lend one's self to the divine 
gladness of spring, and know that simple joy in living, 
that is the birthright of all God's creatures in this — 
His beautiful and perfect — world. 

The flowering almond has been often divided, and 
all about the garden its rosy wreaths may now be seen. 



Here, too, was another old friend, the Yellow 

41 



A Garden with House Attached 



Globe flower — a shrub too large and straggling of 
habit to find a home in the perennial beds. It has taken 
a front seat among the tall shrubs and repeated itself 
many times. It has a long period of blooming, and is 
a most satisfactory inhabitant of the garden. 

And now, as a possible help in the selection and 
arrangement of the perennial border, let me tell you 
what I have learned in regard to those under my care, 
in respect to their habit of growth, their treatment, 
and characteristics. 



The Rose is, as we know, crowned queen of the 
flowers, and has her own separate place in the garden ; 
but as the Lily kindly fraternizes with all her sister- 
flowers, and is easily Queen among the social perennials, 
I give her the first place in this catalogue of my border 
favorites. 

The Lily — we are told — derives its name from 
the Celtic word li — signifying whiteness and purity. 
Quick to seize upon symbolic accessories to their art, 
the old painters put in the hand of the angelic messen- 
ger who brought to the Virgin Mary tidings of her 
divine motherhood, this chaste and exquisite flower. 
Hence the Lilium Candidum was known as the " Lily 
of Annunciation " and as the Madonna Lily, which last 
is, I think, the more poetic and beautiful of the two 
names. 

As the genus lilium embraces about fifty distinct 

42 



A Garden with House Attached 



species one may not aspire to a large show of lilies in 
a moderate-sized garden. 

" It does not seem necessary," says Mr. C. L. 
Allen (an expert in lily cultivation) "to improve, or 
rather, to attempt an improvement on that which is 
already perfect, as the lily is, wherever found in its 
natural habitat. It seems to us that nature has ex- 
hausted her resources in the perfection of the species, 
and regards as an interference all efforts of man to 
improve her work." 

" L. Candidum," says the same authority, " is older 
than history, as the first notice made of plants speaks 
of it as a 'well-known plant.' It is the loveliest, as 
well as the oldest, and if we were to have but one lily 
Candidum would be the one." I quite agree with this 
decision. The Madonna has ever been the lily dearest 
to my heart. Although its native habitat is the Levant, 
the Candidum has adapted itself to our colder tempera- 
ture, and is easily perfected in our temperate climate, 
and in the hardy garden. 

Some twenty years ago this lily was extensively 
forced for the Eastern market. 

In the present decade the Bermuda Lily (L. longi- 
florum) is almost exclusively forced for the Easter 
trade, and popularly known as the " Easter Lily." 
Its cultivation for that April festival has now become 
one of the established industries of that lovely clime. 
The bulbs — there grown in wide flowery fields — 

43 



A Garden with House Attached 



are, early In autumn, received by our florists and di- 
rectly potted for the Easter harvest. 

A lady passing the winter in Bermuda brought from 
that island some bulbs of L. longiflorum, which finally 
coming into the possession of Mr. H. K. Harris of 
Philadelphia, he honored the flower by bestowing upon 
it his own name, and as L. Harrisii, brought it into 
prominent notice among our florists, who now force it 
for Easter-time. The Bermuda-grown bulbs are pre- 
ferred by them to the Dutch-grown ones, as they are 
earlier ripened and come into bloom quicker. 

For myself I prefer the Madonna, with its more 
open flower, to the trumpet-like Bermuda. It is, too, 
an old acquaintance, has a more delicate odor, and 
hangs its sprays more gracefully. The Bermuda needs 
much coaxing to live through our bleak Northern win- 
ters, but the Candidum is absolutely hardy. 

The Madonna holds to her corner with the tenacity 
of a family cat — she is a long time settling herself in 
a " strange garret." 

Mine had undergone the vicissitude of three moving 
days before settling in their present quarters. I dis- 
tributed them well through my sunniest border. Their 
next neighbors were some elderly Bee Larkspurs. The 
first and second year the lovely blue Delphiniums did 
most of the blooming. 

After that the Lilies and Larkspurs punctually 
celebrated together the " great and glorious Fourth " 
— the tall Madonnas (some years in throngs of two 

44 



A Garden with House Attached 



hundred) leading the fair procession — the Larkspurs 
like swarms of blue butterflies flitting about among the 
snow of the lilies. Then, for a time, every friend In 
the neighborhood had a dainty spray of summer lilies 
for decorative uses. Finally, It befell that the coarser 
perennials elbowed the lilies too closely. They grew 
chary of bloom, and sometimes the bulbs quite gave 
up the struggle for existence. Then it was that, calling 
in the aid of " The Man with the Hoe," I made for my 
" Queen Lilies " a new home, with better drainage. 

The Madonna after her July flowering takes a rest. 
Her favorite moving day Is about the last of July. 

I have not an extensive knowledge of lily-culture, 
having but few varieties of this lovely plant In my 
garden. 

All, excepting the Japanese (Lilium auratum) take 
kindly to my borders, and " increase an hundred fold." 
My list includes a few plants of the Japanese found here 
in the purlieus of the old "burglar barricade." I am 
indebted to Mrs. Ely for this Information in regard to 
L. auratum: "As soon as planted in this country a 
microbe disease attacks the bulb and they gradually 
disappear under its ravages." This, no doubt, accounts 
for the unhealthy appearance of my few L, auratums, 
their scant tale of blossoms, and their sad tendency, 
year by year, to " grow beautifully less." America, 
after all, is but the step-mother of this charming flower, 
and Nature somewhat repudiates this much calumni- 
ated tie. 



45 



A Garden with House Attached 



In English gardens they are said to thrive well, 
which may, in part, be due to better climatic conditions. 

In my borders the Candidum takes the front seat. 
Here and there I make place for L. Tigrinum (the 
well-known tiger-lily). In shady places sits the Day 
Lily. I have a single plant of the tall Nankin-colored 
Lily, variously named (Lilium Excelsum, Testacum, 
Isabellinum) . The stalk is sometimes nearly five feet 
high, and produces from three to twelve reflex flowers 
of a dainty Nankin hue — delicately shaded and fra- 
grant. In flowering it immediately follows the Ma- 
donna. The Excelsum is not of Japanese origin. How, 
when, or where it was born is yet unknown. 

It is said to be easy of culture, and this season I 
intend to remove mine to a less crowded situation, as I 
should long ago have done, but for dread of taking 
chances with the one plant. 

There may be a garden where Nankin Lilies are 
"thick as blackberries," but it has been my fortune to 
see but one plant, and I have found that the flower is a 
stranger to all who have met it in my border. 

The Nankin Lily came from our Cambridge gar- 
den, and presumably was originally grown in the Har- 
vard Botanic Garden. I have, too, the old-fashioned, 
sweet-scented, early-blooming Yellow Lily. I have 
never known it by its Latin name, but believe it to be 
Hansoni — a Japanese lily, as it answers In every par- 
ticular to the description of that plant. 

Were the flower more lasting it would be more 

46 



A Garden with House Attached 



desirable. Its bloom, which comes in clusters, has, 
singly, but the short life of a day. 

With delight I found this dear lily of' my far-away 
childhood in one of these old-time borders. 

It is perfectly hardy, and wonderfully prolific in 
bulbs. My garden has now scant room for all its 
Yellow Lilies, and this after friends and neighbors 
have kindly relieved me of some of this " embarrass- 
ment of riches." 

The Lilies-of-the-valley must be kept to their own 
beds, where they double and treble themselves incon- 
tinently. Last, but not of least place in my heart, comes 
that flower thus charmingly vended by "Perdita"-^ 
in "Winter's Tale" — 

" Lilies of all kinds — the Flower de Luce being one." 

The familiar old-time Flower de Luce, a vigorous 
clump of which I found in the "Attached Garden " 
(growing along with the Yellow Lily and the "live- 
forever" plants), is with us a native product, and 
absolutely hardy. The smaller varieties grow wild in 
swamp and meadow, and are, I think, invariably, blue 
as the noon-day heaven. These are sometimes known 
as " Flags." The cultivated hardy Irises are of several 
colors. Mine is a lively blue, shading off to bluish 
white. In these days we grow in our gardens many 
lovely foreign Irises — some of them so beautiful that 
they have been called " the connecting link between the 
LiHes and the Orchids." The flower of the Spanish 

47 



A Garden with House Attached 



Iris Is very lovely and of various colors, quite fragrant, 
and appears in June. It is classed by Dutch bulb 
growers as perfectly hardy, but in our trying climate 
needs to be protected by a slight winter covering. 

The (so named) English Iris is a native of the 
Pyrenees, but, as we are told, has been common in 
English gardens since 157 1. The flowers are of varied 
color — blue, white, lavender, crimson, and yellow. 

L. Germanica, or German Iris, is one of the most 
valuable of the early-flowering sorts for the herbaceous 
border. This Iris is bulbous-rooted, easily propagated, 
and (though classed as hardy) is greatly benefited by a 
light winter covering of leaves. In color the flowers 
are blue, bright yellow, purple, of all shades, and 
white. 

Japanese Iris (I. Kaempferi) is with us fully ac- 
climated, a gross feeder, and a strong grower, and an 
abundant bloomer. Its flowers are from six to ten 
inches in diameter, in various shades of color — pure 
white, dark purple, porcelain blue, maroon, violet, 
plum, and so on — all with very distinct pencilings and 
marblings, and exquisitely beautiful. I have no Japa- 
nese Irises in my garden, but a kind neighbor sends me 
superb cut-blooms from his perfect Iris border. Mr. 
Allen says that the well-cultivated seedling of Japan 
Iris " has no superior in the floral world." 

Iris is named from Iris, the goddess of the rainbow 
— in classic mythology the swift-footed Olympian 
messenger. 

48 



A Garden with House Attached 



The root of the Florentine Iris is fragrant. It has 
a charming violet-like odor, and is the well-known 
sweet Orris root (the name corrupted from Iris) of 
commerce. 

In Shakespeare's day the Iris and the Daffodil were 
both included among the lilies. Some species of Iris 
have from early times been called Fleur de lis, or in 
English, Flower de luce. The Fleur de lis adopted by 
Louis the Vllth of France as the emblem for his shield 
during the Crusades was, probably, the White Iris. 
Older monarchies in Eastern countries, considering the 
Iris an emblem of power, used it — in a conventional- 
ized form — as an emblem, on their scepters, and in this 
form the manufacturer still patterns it on table-linen. 

In the mysterious representations of antique Egypt 
the Iris was placed on the brow of the Sphinx. Alto- 
gether considered it is a most desirable ornament of the 
garden, and a flower " of mark and likelihood." 

It is recorded in the Greek legends that the phy- 
sician Paeon cured Pluto of a wound with the common 
Peony; hence it is called after him in almost every 
country in Europe. 

The ancient Greeks are said to have held the plant 
In high repute, believing it to be of divine origin, and 
an emanation from the moon. Pagan superstitions 
die hard, and in our Christian civilization still hold 
their own among the ignorant masses. 

Mrs. Pratt tells us that in England "the lower 
classes turn beads of the Peony root, which form neck- 

49 



A Garden with House Attached 



laces for their children, and are supposed to aid denti- 
tion, and prevent convulsions." 

We learn from her that at the end of the i6th 
century the double red Peony — at that time introduced 
into Antwerp from Switzerland — was too expensive 
a flower for any but the rich man's garden, a single 
plant selling for twelve pounds ! " The Mongols," 
she tells us, " use the seed of the wild Peony in tea, and 
flavor their broth with its roots." 

Among ourselves no garden is complete without this 
lovely hardy perennial. 

From my childhood the big red Peony — coming 
in late May-time — has been, to my mind, the very em- 
bodiment of Spring! Of all the Peonies this flower of 
my early love is most precious — beloved less for its 
dear blowsy self than for its sweet associations — 
memories of by-gone springs when life and joy went 
hand in hand, and grass was not greening on the graves 
of my dead. 

I have in my borders but four colors of this fine 
flower — red, white, pink, and pink with white center 
— this last a single variety, and an indefatigable 
bloomer. The red, white, and rose pink are all the 
doublest of their kind, and the two latter are deliciously 
odorous. Of late. Peonies of many colors are to be had 
from the seedsman — pink, purple, and salmon-colored 
varieties of exquisite form and color. 

The Peony is greatly disquieted by removal, and, 
though sturdily tenacious of life, refuses for a year or 



50 



A Garden with House Attached 



two after transplanting, to *' do its level best." It is 
increased by division of tubers, or may be propagated 
by seed. The division and replanting should be done 
in October, and one should see that there is, at least, 
one eye on each tuber. 

The Peony may be commended to the perennial 
grower, not only as a lovely flower, but as a plant to 
*' tie to." It never gets winter-killed, blossoms punctu- 
ally, and has no pernickity notions in regard to situa- 
tion. It will grow in any soil, but to do its best requires 
to be well fed and to have the loam about it kept loose 
and friable, the same as for the rose. 



The Foxglove (Digitalis) beautifully repays one's 
care. Unhappily it has a tendency to succumb to the 
harshness of our climate, and often gets winter-killed; 
surviving this ordeal, it is — with its charming spikes 
of white, purple, and pinkish lilac bloom — the pride 
of the garden. Four years ago I had, in the western 
end of a southward-facing border, a superb clump of 
this lovely biennial. Many times a day I went to look 
at these exquisite flowers. As I stood before them in 
admiration a friend often joined me, and while we 
stood admiring them, I thought of the Persian flower- 
worship — an account of which I had come across in 
my reading and stored in my collection of " Useful 
Clippings." Here It is. I cannot now recall the name 
of its author: 



51 



A Garden with House Attached 



"A Persian saunters into a garden and stands and 
meditates on each flower before him, as in a half vision. 

"When the vision is fulfilled, and the ideal flower 
sought for found, he spreads his mat and sits before it 
until the setting of the sun, then folding his mat he 
goes home. 

"The next night he returns with friends — in ever- 
increasing troops, and they sit before it playing the lute, 
or guitar, and then all together join in prayer. 

"After prayer they still sit before it sipping sherbet 
and chatting late in the moonlight, and so again every 
evening until the flower dies." 

This oriental vein of plant and flower-worship 
seems to have been found in all Persians — even in 
royalty itself! It is related of Xerxes the Great that 
he lost a battle by delaying a whole day with his army 
under the shade of a gigantic plane tree, which so 
charmed him that he caused it to be adorned with a 
golden circlet. 

But, to return to the Foxgloves — five or six years 
ago one in my border made a new departure. It 
"sported"! 

It should perhaps be explained that to sport is to 
produce a flower, or a shoot, of abnormal growth. 
Long ago I read a most interesting paper " On Sports." 

I do not remember the name of its writer, nor of 
the English magazine in which I found it, and after an 
exhaustive search in our town library have not been 
able to find a second paper on the subject, or to obtain 

52 



A Garden with House Attached 



further Information in regard to this curious tendency 
from any botanist. 

I remember that the English article stated that this 
tendency in plant or shrub to ignore Nature and take 
things into its own hands, was sometimes utilized by 
the horticulturist as an opportunity to propagate from 
the "Sport" a new variety of the normal plant, or 
shrub. Here then was my chance ! From the seed of 
this enterprising digitalis (which bore at its apex a 
flower almost as flat as a daisy) I would develop a new 
variety — a radiate Foxglove. 

I confided my ambition to a friend who, although 
himself a teacher of botany, had never included in his 
research the subject of " Sports." This botanical ex- 
pert took great interest in my "Sport" — watching it 
with me from day to day. 

Alas, vain were my hopes of giving to the world a 
new flower! 

The radiate Foxglove declined the honor of repro- 
duction ; dropping its mottled petals, and slowly shrink- 
ing away without forming a seed pod! 

A queer characteristic of the "Sport" was thus 
asserted in the English article before mentioned: 
" When a plant sports, all plants of its kind, wherever 
growing, also sport." Now one may admit the fact of 
a single plant having (as it were) flown in the face of 
Mother Nature, but when it comes to the whole family 
— " all the aunts and cousins," from Dan to Beersheba, 

53 



A Garden with House Attached 



joining in the frohc, one can but wonder and doubt the 
Munchausen-Hke statement. 

CaUing that summer on a Cambridge friend (a 
member of our Plant Club, whose flower-garden is a 
miracle of beauty) : 

" One of my Foxgloves has sported," I proudly 
boasted. " So has one of mine," she said, " and it is 
the first sport I have ever seen." 

So the magazine statement was, after all, believ- 
able ! Yes, away across the Atlantic, in English gar- 
dens, the Foxglove — obedient to this marvelous na- 
tural impulse of its being — was trying its hand at a 
radiate flower! I find it well that my sport did not 
germinate, since the regularly formed Foxglove suits 
the tall spike " to a T," and is far lovelier than any 
freak of a flower could be. 

Since making a record of my Foxglove sport I have 
learned that this flower often produces at the tip of its 
blossom stalk an abortive radiate flower. I wonder if 
the Foxglove did not originally start out as a radiate, 
and if this freak is not a wild tendency of the plant to 
escape that evoluted form (which is its civilization) 
and lapse into its primitive barbarism? 

The Foxglove comes in bloom late in June and con- 
tinues flowering about four weeks. 

Though classed as a biennial, it sometimes lingers 
on through a third summer, and continues flowering. 

It is named from its finger-shaped corolla. The 

54 



A Garden with House Attached 



dried leaf of Digitalis Purpurea is a specific for dis- 
turbance of circulation, and is used in heart disease. 

Its colors are pure white, white mottled with pencil- 
color, purple, lavender, from, the palest to the deepest 
shades — some almost pink — all curiously mottled on 
the inside of the flower, which grows in tall spikes. 

Sow Foxgloves in seed bed about last of April, and, 
late in September, transplant to their permanent place. 
They will bloom the following year. 

Both Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells sow them- 
selves profusely if stalk is left to perfect its seeds. 

The self-sown plants are said to be stronger than 
the hand-sown ones, and may be transplanted for the 
next year's blooming. 



CANTERBURY BELLS, Campanula medium 

It has been suggested that " the name of Canter- 
bury Bells may have been given to the giant species of 
Campanula from its resemblance to the hand-bells 
which were placed on poles, and rung by pilgrims while 
proceeding to the shrine of Thomas a Becket. 

Chaucer, in his " Canterbury Tales," has described 
in detail these processions to the tomb of the "blisful 
martir." 

The Canterbury Bell is, like the Foxglove, a bien- 
nial, and may be sown in the seed bed at the same time, 
or the self-sown plants may be used. 

55 



A Garden with House Attached 



It needs winter protection (not too heavy) , for it is 
easily winter-killed. 

I have, at times, had in my garden most lovely 
Campanulas — both double, single, and "cup and 
saucers." The most beautiful variety is the single. 

In color mine were white, purple, and lavender, of 
many shades, but the pride of my heart was a rose-pink 
Canterbury Bell. 

"Beautiful as a dream!" said the garden visitor, 
moved to admiration at the sight of these pink beauties. 

Lovely as they are, Canterbury Bells have not the 
grace to die nicely. 

Their dead blossoms cling, withered and unsightly, 
to the parent stem, and unless one has time and patience 
to go among the plants daily and remove the dead bells 
it is, for this reason, well to cultivate them in incon- 
spicuous beds apart by themselves. 

Another most desirable plant for the perennial 
border is Phlox (from the Greek flame). Time was 
when we had but the white and purple, the latter tend- 
ing to that odious color magenta, which some one has 
happily said is " a color that has no right to be." The 
above varieties I found in the old border, growing ami- 
cably together. It is not without touches of remorse 
that I deliberately uproot anything that bears the name 
of flower, but, since I could remember, there has been 
a deadly feud between purple Phlox and myself. I 
keep a single root for old-time sake, which it gives me a 
megrim to look at. The white has been transplanted 

56 



A Garden with House Attached 



and has grown apace, until there are oceans of it in 
my borders. 

I have, too, some of the fine varieties of " Phlox 
Drummondi." One of them, a deep salmon red, with a 
dark eye, is literally a bit of '' flame." There are pinks 
with maroon-colored eyes, whites with pinkish eyes, 
purp white, lilac shaded with carmine, and light salmon 
with wine-colored eyes. I love best the pure white and 
dark salmon pink, but scarce could spare any of these 
from my color-scheme. The Phlox is the hardiest of 
herbaceous perennials, easily propagated by division, 
or from seed. With me, the seed-grown Phloxes have 
not come true in color. It is, I think, wisest to select 
plants in flowering time among varieties in a florist's 
collection, and order them at once. They are so tough 
that any moving day suits them, and one can scarce 
have too many, as they begin blooming in early August, 
when the border is somewhat forlorn, and last until 
frost. 



Day-lily is the common name of a species of the 
Asphodelus. The ancients planted Asphodels near 
graves to supply the manes of their dead with nourish- 
ment. The poets, probably taking their cue from this, 
have celebrated the Asphodel in song as the flower of 
the immortals. I have thought that the bloom, of the 
Day-lily, exquisite in form and odor, needs but the 
added charm of immortality to fit it for 

"Angel gardens," 

57 



A Garden with House Attached 



but alas, Its only defect Is Its evanescence — a single day 
bounds Its life on this planet. 

Its foliage Is very ornamental, and for grouping 
with perennials it Is a plant greatly to be desired. It 
is easily propagated. From one sickly root found in 
the old garden I have grown for my own garden Day- 
lilies ad Infinitum, and easily spared many for those of 
my neighbors. It needs to be well fed, and will accept 
any respectable situation, and, though doing well in the 
sun, is most eligible for shady spots where other plants 
refuse to grow. 



The Sweet- William — Dianthus — is hardy enough 
and perennial enough, profuse of bloom, and gay In 
color, yet nevertheless from the show places of my gar- 
den I have banished It " for good and all," because of 
Its tendency to sprawl about the borders after flowering 
time, wan and withered, and making faces at the 
freshly-gowned Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells, then 
thronging the borders. 

The Sweet-WIlliam has quietly taken a back seat, 
and, owing me no grudge, contentedly blooms on, as if 
to " blush unseen " were Its special province. 

With those tough little members of the Dianthus 
family, China Pinks, I have been most successful. 
It Is a perennial, but too low-growing to make any 
marked show among the taller flowers. It is prettily 
varied in color, but lacks the odor of the Clove Pink. 

58 



A Garden with House Attached 



It is a profuse bloomer, and makes a desirable pot- 
plant for the window garden, 

"The flower of the family" is the old Clove Pink, 
to which the parentage of our Carnation is by some ac- 
corded. The Elizabethan poet Drayton calls these 
sweet-smelling flowers " Cloves of Paradise," and 
Lawson — at the close of the sixteenth century — thus 
extols it : " Of all the flowers save the damask rose they 
are the most pleasant to sight and smell." " Their use," 
continues he, " is much in ornament, and comforting 
the spirits by the sense of smelling." 

A syrup made of Clove Pinks (with the probable 
addition of some stimulant) and called by our English 
forbears " Sops-in-wine," because of its use in giving 
flavor to the festive cup, gave to this flower its rather 
material appellation of Sops-in-wine. Thus sings 
Spenser : 

" Bring Carnations and Sops-in-wine 
Worn of paramours" (lovers — wooers). 

Bacon informs us that " Sops-in-wine, quantity for 
quantity, inebriate more than wine itself." 

A precious Clove Pink of Botanic Garden origin, 
for a time bloomed in my border. It has, long since, 
died of old age. 



Shakespeare says in Othello : 

" Not poppy, nor mandragora, 
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou had'st yesterday." 



59 



A Garden with House Attached 



Keats and many others have immortalized it in 

their verse. 

Burns thus points a moral with the flower : 

" Pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed." 

The Papaver family has wrought much ill in its 
day. It is from P. somniferum, one of its members, 
that the opium of commerce is collected. It is the 
milky juice of the capsule, or of any other part of the 
plant which exudes from incisions in the cortical part. 
This juice, scraped off, is worked in the sun's heat till 
it is of a consistency to form cakes. 

The Oriental and Iceland Poppy are both perennial. 
Although like the Irishman, " not born in their own 
native country," they take kindly to our soil. Ten 
years ago I carefully sowed some seed of Oriental 
Poppy. Two of them consented to germinate, and 
now, from this small beginning, I have in my garden 
Orientals galore. Last spring these beauties kept my 
borders all aflame with their splendor. I counted, in 
a single border, eighty-five buds and blooms, and felt 
well-repaid for their careful nurture. Nevertheless, 
Oriental Poppies raised from seed mean much patient 
care, and many failures, but once thoroughly estab- 
lished they are " real estate," and have a kindly way of 
sowing themselves. As the Poppy, with its long '' tap 
root," is most impatient of removal, this habit espe- 
cially commends them to the grower. 

The Iceland Poppy, though far less considerable 

60 



A Garden with House Attached 



In size, is very hardy, and with its dainty bloom of 
lemon, orange, red, and white, makes a pretty show in 
a bed by itself; and the Iceland is one of the few poppies 
available for one's vases. 

Mrs. Thaxter, in the beautiful account of her Isle 
of Shoals gardening, tells us that by cutting poppies in 
the dew of the morning, with the right hand, and 
plumping them straight into water with the left, she 
had great success with them as cut flowers. 

Following her method — unsuccessfully — I am 
forced to believe that the long and beautiful survival 
of her cut poppies depended largely on the crisp cool 
air of her Island home. Here the summer is many 
degrees hotter, and has far less moisture in its air, and, 
though morning after morning, tempted by their ex- 
quisite shades of color, I gather Shirley Poppies for the 
house, and like the Persian, fall down and worship 
them ; In their slender vases they scarce outlive the day. 

A friend making a pilgrimage to Stratford-on 
Avon brought me some seed supposedly from Anne 
Hathaway's garden. 

I sowed Madame Shakespeare's popples with rever- 
ent care, but these English-born seeds patriotically re- 
fused to quicken in alien soil. No matter! they may 
have been but half-wild wind-sown things, and with 
my Shirleys, Icelands, and glorious Orientals, I can 
spare them. 

With the ancient Greeks, the poppy with its crowded 

6i 



A Garden with House Attached 



capsules was an emblem of fertility. Cybele, the mother 
of the gods, wears a crown of poppies. 

In Roman gardens Somnus, the god of slumber, 
was anciently figured as reclining on -a mass of snowy 
poppies, with a posy of these emblems of oblivion in 
his motionless hand. 

Mexican Indians are pictured as returning home 
after a day of toil, dancing and singing to the music of 
a guitar, and crowned with wreaths of this " forgetful 
flower." 

In the shops of Constantinople poppy juice mixed 
with rich fruit syrups is sold as a sweetmeat, or in the 
form of small lozenges on which are stamped ''Mash 
Allah" (the work of God) . Tartar couriers, traveling 
immense distances, and with marvelous speed and en- 
durance, often, it is said, take no other nourishment 
than the famous "Mash Allah " of the Turks, in which 
the juice of hemp is mingled with that of the poppy. 



The Columbine (Aquilegia) is a desirable plant 
for the border. Mine came from choice seed sent the 
Plant Club from Mr. Childs, a Philadelphia florist. 
They soon germinated, but were two years coming to 
bloom. 

There are now many beautiful colors to be had. 
I have but the yellow and white, the purple and white, 
and pure yellows. 

Once well-established. Columbines come to stay, 

62 



A Garden with House Attached 



and are most lovely ! the garden plants flowering from 
the middle of May until late in June, and having the 
same graceful carriage of the wild variety, with flowers 
double their size, and with elegant long " spurs." 

Its name is from the Latin Columbinas (dove-like) 
so called from the beak-like spurs of its flowers. 



In my mention of early-blooming perennials I had 
forgotten the Crown Imperial. It is a resident of most 
old gardens, and has the distinction of remote antiquity. 
Mention is made of it in an Herbal of 1596 for its 
" stately beautifulness," and the herbalist accords it a 
" first place in the Garden of Delight." 

I have but a single plant of this early flower, which 
punctually leads off in the spring procession along with 
its neighbor, the red peony. 

The Eupatorium is not, I think, extensively culti- 
vated in the garden. It is one of the hardiest of the 
later perennials. Mine was raised from seed. Having 
but one clump of it, I am always meaning to sow and 
to raise more plants of this dainty white flower, which 
comes with the Phloxes at the most flowerless time of 
the borders, but (to borrow an excuse from my slack 
old colored woman-of-all-work) " I haint jus' fetch 
roun' to it." 

I find the Eupatorium's name in my seed catalogue. 
It is not, there, classed with the hardy perennials. It 
grows high enough to make a fair show among the 
border plants. 

63 



A Garden with House Attached 



As will be seen, I have not in my borders a large 
assortment of perennials. My purse forbids a costly 
collection, and I think it well to undertake no more 
plants than can be well cared for in my hands, when 
much extra help cannot be afforded. 

To my list let me add a few low-growing beauties. 

The Italian peasant twines wreaths of the Peri- 
winkle around the head of the departed infant or young 
maiden, and calls it Fler di morte (Death's Flower). 
Because of the laurel-like tint and texture of its glossy 
leaves the Greek has termed it Daphnoides. 

In olden times it was highly valued for its medicinal 
virtues. Lord Bacon tells us that, in his day, bands 
of green Periwinkle were bound about the limbs to pre- 
vent cramps. By Americans it is often miscalled 
Myrtle. It carpets finely the bare spaces in borders, 
especially the shady ones, where other perennials will 
not thrive. 

The Periwinkle is not an " up-to-date " plant. The 
seedsman of today gives it no place in his catalogue. 
I have several thrifty clumps of this pretty blue-eyed 
darling, and delight greatly in its bloom and its glossy 
trailing foliage. 

Periwinkle is one of the oldest flowers of the Eng- 
lish garden. Chaucer in describing a garden of the 
olden time speaks of it as " Fresh Periwinkle, rich of 
hue," and places it on the same plane with the rose and 
violet. 



64 



A Garden with House Attached 



The Forget-me-not is another low-growing peren- 
nial which may prettily carpet the bare spots between 
the taller occupants of the border. 

We have all associated the name of this charming 
little flower with the story of the chivalrous knight who 
wandered beside a stream with the lady of his love. 
In the attempt to procure for her some of its much- 
desired flowers growing on the opposite shore he was 
borne away by the current while returning to her side 
with the gathered blossoms, and, making a last effort, 
threw them on the margin of the engulfing flood, and 
crying " Forget-me-not," sank beneath the waters. 

Miss Strickland gives a less romantic but more prob- 
able narrative of the origin of the name. The exiled 
Henry of Lancaster, whose fortunes are related by 
Shakespeare in " King John," according to this writer, 
first gave to the Forget-me-not its emblematic meaning 
by writing it on his collar with the initial letter of his 
mot, or watchword, and on his restoration from banish- 
ment continued this heraldic use of the flower, adopted 
in his homesickness, even when raised to the fatal emi- 
nence of a king. 



Some of the showiest of the annuals may be, in 
June, transplanted from the seed beds to brighten the 
borders through August and September, as the Yellow 
Marigolds, the Zinnias, the Nicotianas, the Cosmos, 
and the seedling Single Dahlias, which will bloom the 
first year, and if that dictum of Linnaeus ("a double 

6s 



A Garden with House Attached 



flower Is a vegetable monster") may be accepted, are 
the beauties of the family. They are certainly more 
lovely for one's vases than the double Dahlias, and the 
white ones are, as a table decoration, scarce less charm- 
ing than the white Cosmos. 

The Dahlia is named after Andrew Dahl, a 
Swedish botanist, and is a native of Mexico and Central 
America. 

It shows a natural disposition to sport from its 
original form (single). 

Florists directed their attention to raising new forms 
of this flower. First attempts finally resulted in semi- 
double varieties, and early in the i8th century M. 
Doukelan, botanic gardener at Louvain, produced from 
seed three perfectly double plants. These are said to be 
the very first double Dahlia plants ever produced. The 
Dahlia is decidedly progressive. Its up-to-date achieve- 
ment is the elegant Cactus variety. I sowed, this year, 
some seeds of double Dahlia. It is now October and a 
few of them (some very beautiful and quite Cactus- 
like) are in bloom. 



Once upon a time there were in this garden thrifty 
borders of Box. These the dear Lady tried hard to 
keep intact. 

Every spring the failing rows were reset with small 
plants from the ancient stock, and were, first and last, 
the plague and despair of " the man's " busy life. At 
first I made the same futile attempt to restore the Box 

66 



A Garden with House Attached 



bordering. Now I have given up this idea of repairing 
the withered sections, but some six or eight large plants 
still in their beautiful perfection delight my heart. 
Some there are who object to the odor of Box, to others 
it is very pleasant and grateful. I am very fond of it, 
partly, I suppose, from its association with some much- 
admired gardens that I knew in childhood. 

Common Box has but two varieties, one of which 
is the Dwarf Box, used as an edging for flower-beds — 
the other (Tree Box) is described as of surprising 
thickness, and as tall as the beech tree. This tree is of 
great antiquity. It is mentioned in the Bible, with the 
fir tree and the pine, as affording wood for the temple 
of King Solomon. The wood of the Box tree is very 
valuable and durable. Virgil has thus sung its virtues : 

" Smooth-grained and proper for the turner's trade, 
Which curious hands may carve, and steel invade." 

Mrs. Pratt tells us that " in the North of England 
the old custom of each mourner carrying a sprig of Box 
at a funeral and throwing it in the grave still lingers." 

Wordsworth thus baldly refers to this practice, in 
his verse — 

" Fresh sprigs of boxwood, not six months before. 
Filled the funeral basin at Timothy's door." 

In Turkey, the widow, who goes weekly to pray at 
the tomb of her husband, plants a sprig of Box at the 
head of the grave. 



67 



CHAPTER VIII 

Hollyhocks and Violets 

HARD by the Lover's walk, in an old-time bed, 
a blue Flower-de-luce, some roots of white and 
purple Phlox, a bunch or two of " Leaf-for- 
ever," and another of scented yellow Lilies, had long 
stoutly held their own. Here, every spring-time, the 
Lady caused to be planted her Dahlia bulbs — by no 
means the choicest of their kind, but taking amicably 
to the situation, and every autumn generously contri- 
buting their scarlet, lavender, and purple bloom to the 
color scheme of the big bowpots that adorned the side 
table in the " Mansion House " hall. 

Four years ago, late in July, to deaden the pain of 
a new bereavement, I prepared this bed for the recep- 
tion of a few dozen Hollyhock plants. It was the place 
suggested for this use by him who had left me, and with 
many tender thoughts of the beloved one I undertook 
the carrying out of his wishes. Removing to other 
quarters the old inhabitants of the bed " The Man with 
the Hoe " dug deep and spared not for manure. This 
done, on a cloudy day we set the young plants. It 
seemed a risky undertaking to transplant at midsum- 
mer, but, covered for a time from the sun and faithfully 
watered, they all adjusted themselves to their new home, 
and have, ever since, thriven to my heart's content. 
The bed is long and of moderate width. The plants 
were set in two rows, about one foot apart, and in 

68 



A Garden with House Attached 



the space between the outer rows we put, here and there, 
smaller plants. In late autumn they all had a covering 
of litter and boughs, and were made snug for their win- 
ter nap. As the situation is high and exposed to " all the 
alrts the wind may blow," it was not without misgivings 
that I waited for the spring uncovering and the after de- 
velopment. In due time the hardy darlings showed their 
pretty green shoots, and before midsummer they stood 
up in budded rows, ready to be staked, and about the 
thirteenth of July the bed burst into splendid bloom. 
My color scheme called for but two colors, pink and 
white, and wonderful it was to see the shading of the 
roseate flowers, varying, as it did, from wine color to 
such faint pink as lives between the dainty lips of a sea 
shell. 

On some stalks (more than eight feet high) the 
flowers came double as a cabbage rose; on others they 
were half double, and the out-and-out single ones had 
the sheen of satin and the transparency of gauze, and 
all were more or less creamy or lemon-hued at the 
center. 

I think it must be from the old association of Holly- 
hocks with village Fourth of July celebrations that the 
flower has to my mind a distinctly festal appearance. 
Standing at the end of my bed and looking down the 
rows of pink and white is to me like watching a holiday 
procession. Not a commonplace ordinary one, keep- 
ing step to the music of a brass band, with doughty 
policemen hustling the hoodlums in its rear, but one 

69 



A Garden with House Attached 



of chaste and joyous maidens gowned gayly in pink and 
white, such as may of old have been led by " Jephthah's 
daughter," what time she " went forth with timbrel and 
dances " to meet her rash, exultant father fresh from 
his victory over Israel's uncircumcised foes. Yes, the 
Hollyhock, though lacking the delicacy of the Lily and 
the fragrance of the Rose, is a flower "most fair to 
see." The yellows and purples are both beautiful, but 
for massing give me the reds, pinks, and whites. 

Sow in the seed bed each spring and thus have new 
plants to supply places made vacant in the show bed, 
and to bestow on neighbors who are starting rows of 
this fine hardy perennial. 

Hollyhock — "O E holihoc — "holy mallow" — 
" blessed mallow " — is probably so named because 
brought from the Holy Land. 



No garden is complete without its Violet bed. Ours 
was started eight years ago. We selected for it a spot 
" half in shade and half In shine," with a southern 
frontage, sheltered from the north by tall shrubs. 

Two packets of choice Russian Violet seed were 
then sown in friable soil, well sifted, and made rich 
with a bottom layer of old cow manure. The bed had 
been laid out, prepared, and sown by the dear hands of 
one whose gardening Is now " all done." 

After all his care the seed never germinated, and 
early In the following autumn the bed was set with well- 

70 



A Garden with House Attached 



grown double Russian Violet plants bought of the flo- 
rist. For a year or two these plants throve finely, blos- 
somed abundantly, and increased fourfold. The third 
year the flowers degenerated in size and beauty, and 
though still, at May-time, the bloom punctually puts in 
an appearance, the Russians are, on the whole, far less 
satisfactory than the single English Violets brought 
from the Cambridge garden and growing in the end 
of the same bed. These flower most generously and 
come into bloom about ten days earlier than the Rus- 
sians. 

The Violet has an obliging way of sowing its own 
seed, projecting them from its capsule with dynamic 
force. My English darlings have a lavish habit of 
scattering themselves about the lawn, in that fashion, 
and filling in the bare places in the bed. The Russians 
choose rather to be propagated from, runners. Friends 
I have who grow year after year big velvety Russian 
Violets. Would that I had the skill to do likewise, but 
to me heaven denies the power of bringing these beau- 
ties to perfection. Yet (such as they are) I hold my 
Violets dear, and without them spring would scarce be 
spring. 

In all the old floral usages of the English the Violet 
holds a place next to the Rose. It was used at wed- 
dings, and had its place in other and sadder religious 
ceremonials. 

With the Troubadours it was an emblem of con- 
stancy. Their prize of a golden Violet to the best 

71 



A Garden with House Attached 



versifier of the flower's graces and beauties proves in 
how much esteem they held this April blossom. 



The Pansy, one of the Violas, was much celebrated 
by the elder English poets, who gave it the charming 
name of " Heartsease." 

Pansies may be easily grown from seed. As they 
are less troubled by cold than most flowers — being 
half hardy — the seedlings may be treated as biennials. 
Transplant them from seed bed in September, and in 
November cover well with old manure, then add piled 
leaves and evergreen boughs, and the minute spring 
opens uncover. 

The young plants should not be allowed to flower 
In the autumn. Pick off the buds as they appear and 
they will be likely to give you bloom all summer long. 
I confess to an impatience that prompts to the buying 
of many baskets of Pansies in May, and thus securing 
flowers on the spot, besides selecting my favorite colors. 
These plants will not . achieve much after their first 
season, but will grow "beautifully less" in size, and 
finally become like Lady's Delights, those pretty ple- 
beian Violas that accept any soil, or situation, and show 
their cheery little faces among the cabbages, and even 
in the skimpy soil of the gravel walks. 

"There's Pansy, that's for thought," says Perdita, 
In "Winter's Tale." 

Pansy — French pensee, fancy or thought, from 
penser, to think. Heartsease — ease of heart — tran- 

72 



A Garden with House Attached 



quillity of mind — is the poet's name of the flower. Of 
the common names one may choose between " Johnny 
Jump-up " and the more elegant Lady's Delight, 

The Violet, though but a tiny unassuming flower, 
is (both in verse and prose) often classed with the 
regal Rose. Both are delightful in perfume, and in 
that respect equally popular. 

Having small knowledge of rose-growing I do not 
presume to hold forth on " Rose Culture." Books on 
that subject are many and excellent, and I should but 
say with " Denis," the " Minister's double," when his 
turn came to make a speech at the committee meeting: 
" So much has been said, and so well said, that I will 
not further pursue the subject." Nevertheless, my next 
chapter shall be devoted to this " Queen-flower." 



73 



CHAPTER IX 

The Rose 

THE Rose is no mushroom Queen. Her ancestry- 
dates away back to the Garden of Eden, and if 
Eve did not there gather a rosebud boutonniere 
for Adam it was because that primitive young man had 
not a buttonhole " to his name." 

The Rose of all flowers has been most praised by- 
poets. From Isaiah's day to our own they have cele- 
brated its charms. In English history it figured as the 
badge in the feuds between the houses of York and 
Lancaster. Among the ancients the Rose was the sym- 
bol of secrecy, and was hung up at entertainments as a 
token that nothing there said was to be divulged — 
hence the well-known phrase "under the rose" (sub 
rosa). The Romans at their voluptuous entertain- 
ments suspended roses in golden network from the 
ceiling, which, throughout the feast, fell slowly upon 
the reclining guest. All day, while the skillful Roman 
chef busied himself with his ragouts of flamingo 
tongues, his pates of locusts and honey, and his roasts 
garnished with " chilled mushrooms," slaves, in garden 
or forcing-house (as the season might be), wove fresh 
wreaths of roses for the invited guests, which beautiful 
youths, with hair in golden nets, waiting at the door of 
the triclinium, put upon their heads, warning them, as 
the custom was, to pass the threshold " right foot fore- 
most." One sees, in fancy, the couches of these recum- 

74 



A Garden with House Attached 



bent feasting voluptuaries, with the roses dropping, 
dropping, all night long, while the wine cup brimmed 
and " the hours went by on velvet feet." 

The flower-loving Persians held annually a " Feast 
of Roses," which, we are told, continued the whole time 
of their remaining in bloom, and still another known as 
" The Scattering of the Roses." Groups of beautiful 
children then went through the streets strewing these 
delicious flowers. 

Tom Moore tells us that " every part of the city 
was then as fragrant as if a caravan of musk from 
Khoten had passed through it." 

My own rose garden is not much to brag of, having 
been made up of such miscellaneous rose bushes as were 
(without outlay) attainable. The greater part of these 
had come over with us from the Cambridge garden. 
Most plentiful of all are the Blush Roses. (Bushels of 
their scented petals are yearly cured by me for Pot- 
pourri.) One or two bushes of it still straggled on in 
the old-time border, and brought up to their possibili- 
ties by transplantation and sufficient food, soon became 
good to see, as also did the lone rose bush from the edge 
of the grass-plot, dear to the Lady's heart as the gift of 
a dead friend, and, summer after summer feeding the 
delusive hope of bloom, nursed in her optimistic soul. 
Now there is a second bush of its kind, both bravely 
blooming. 

I have never learned the name of the Lone Rose. 
It is so very double that I have fancied It might be a 

75 



A Garden with House Attached 



descendant of the Persian " Gul sad buk," the Rose of 
a hundred leaves, a particular species much prized in 
the Vale of Cashmere. Be that as it may, it is a lovely 
flower. Its petals are legion, and its buds so rounded 
and compact as to have the appearance of big pink 
" alleys." More exquisite still is a single rose rescued 
from choking In a snarl of waxberry bushes. . 

It has since taken to itself a big slice of the rose 
garden, and, enlarged by good living to twice its ancient 
size, its daintily shaded flowers, for decorative use, are 
simply perfection. Unhappily their bloom is evanes- 
cent. They seldom outlast in water a day and a night. 

Among the Cambridge roses was a little half-wild 
pink darling " unknown to fame." I found it at Farm 
Hill (Weymouth Town), where it ran riot among the 
vegetables in a carelessly ordered garden patch, and 
straggling through the picket fence, held its own among 
the seldom-trodden wayside weeds and grasses. Its 
color is bright pink, and it has the size and habit of the 
Scotch Rose, and is in full bloom when other roses are 
but buds. 

Another early pink rose which we found in the 
Cambridge garden Is the next earliest. It flowers about 
the 9th of June. I have no clue to Its name. It must 
have been one of the Botanic Garden roses. Its blossom 
Is exquisite In form, but not over fragrant. In habit 
it is straggling, almost a climber, and does not take 
kindly to pruning. Then there are the well-known 
Damask Roses, which must have come long, long ago 

76 



A Garden with House Attached 



from the Harvard collection. In their own habitat the 
Damasks are cultivated for their mercantile value, be- 
ing, as we are told, the special roses from which the 
costly foreign Attar is obtained, I had thought that 
the Damask Rose had in the family three colors, but 
Bacon sets me right. He says : " It is large, pink, 
hardy, and has not been known in England (at the 
time of his writing) above one hundred years." It 
is by no means a distinguished-looking rose, but seems 
to have conserved within its sweet heart the perfume of 
a thousand summers. 

A Yellow Scotch Rose takes kindly to my garden. 
A rose bought of a Cambridge florist for the beloved 
daughter, gone home to God (whose latest care it was) , 
and now known as " Mary's Rose," bore well its second 
uprooting. It has come to be a tall bush, bearing abun- 
dant clusters of deep pink bloom, and all summer put- 
ting forth crisp shoots, with leaves red as a sunset cloud, 
and lovely as flowers for decorative uses. 

A Sweetbriar — rifled years ago from the wildwood 
— after a fourth transplanting knew three summers of 
thrifty growth in its latest home, and then gave up, 
without notice, the experiment of being cultivated. Not 
so a sturdy wilding brought all the way from Maine, 
as a dear souvenir of happy seaside " days that are no 
more." It still accommodates itself to Massachusetts 
soil and bears with fortitude the exigencies of Massa- 
chusetts " culchure." 

Last and best is my heart's joy — the white rose of 
my childhood. 

77 



A Garden with House Attached 



It has never revealed to me the secret of its botanic 
name; I simply know it as the " White Rose." 

Fifty years ago its sister roses might have been found 
in many dooryards — side by side with ragged pink 
cinnamon roses — thriving untended, loaded with 
bloom, and covering the low fronts of roadside farm- 
houses. Its flowers are lovely in form, with creamy 
petals, and just the faint suspicion of a blush at their 
heart. 

Its odor is all its own — a strong, chaste, whole- 
some scent, yet sweet withal as the " honey of Hy- 
mettus." 

All my life long it had been the desire of my heart 
to have a bush of this old-time white rose in my very 
own garden. Time after time I had bought and planted 
it, but to watch it die; at last, when half a century of 
my life had gone, it surprised me in the Cambridge 
garden ! The bush had evidently seen its best days, 
and when we moved to The Lilacs opinions varied 
as to the wisdom of transplanting so old a settler. We 
could but try, and so we tried and succeeded. The big 
scraggly bush is (ten years after) bravely holding its 
own, and summer after summer scantily bearing the 
same dear old roses. A second bush, propagated from 
the parent root, has been put in our Mt. Auburn bury- 
ing lot. It is one of my idle fancies to have a white 
rose tree near my grave. Surely when "petals of its 
blown roses " fall upon the grass above my head 

78 



A Garden with House Attached 



" My heart will hear them and beat 
Tho' lain for a century dead." 

And now It is on my conscience that, in this authentic 
history, I have not yet confessed my disgraceful failure 
with Perpetual Roses. In the little bed, started ten 
years ago, but six decadent specimens now " hold the 
fort." 

I cannot state whether this shameful fact is the re- 
sult of unfitness of soil, mistaken pruning, insufficient 
winter protection, or simply the malice of opposing 
Fate. 

Innumerable " Rose-grower's Guides " have been 
consulted in regard to loam, manure, and phosphates 
since I made this venture. Naturally, then, the soil 
cannot be greatly at fault, and as to "winter protec- 
tion " I have, as directed, stacked the bushes in straw, 
covered the ground with good manure, topped by a 
covering of leaves held in place by strips of board. 
This failing, I have tried omitting the stacking, and 
using manure, leaves, and boards, and finally have 
fallen back on manure and leaves as a permanent 
"winter arrangement." In regard to pruning I have 
consulted many authorities, but " who shall decide when 
doctors disagree?" 

My Perpetuals have been pruned in early spring, 
at mid-summer, and in autumn — have been pruned a 
little and pruned a good deal, and with the same dreary 
result, and my ultimatum is — prune not at all. 

This final decision is In direct opposition to the con- 



79 



A Garden with House Attached 



victions of "The Man with the Hoe," who, once the 
pruning shears are in his hand, is prone to emulate the 
insatiate old fellow of the New England Primer, com- 
mended to our childish attention' by this awesome 
couplet : 

" Time cuts down all, 
Both great and small." 

This propensity to " trim things up " is the one 
flaw in the character of this useful person. On such 
days as he takes up his shears I follow anxiously in his 
wake, and with mild remonstrance stay his ruthless 
hand. 

So many Perpetuals have, first and last, lived out 
their little day in my garden that my poor brain refuses 
the task of recalling their names. Of the six bushes 
that still survive, two are Jacques, one an unreliable 
pink rose (name forgotten), which blooms when "so 
dispoged," usually drops its shrunken buds right and 
left, and, if quite convenient, perfects annually two or 
three lovely flowers of delicate pink and of marvelous 
size. 

Next in order are the two cherished white roses, 
the gift of a kind neighbor, that, regardless of early 
frosts, bear their pretty clusters up to the very last days 
of October. Lastly comes the tall thrifty bush pro- 
cured years ago along with five sister bushes in the prize 
collection of a florist; the latter all died young. I cannot 
recall the name of the survivor, nor tell its color, for 
never once has it put forth bud or bloom. Hope, how- 

80 



A Garden with House Attached 



ever, dies hard in the plant-lover's breast. Like the 
scriptural proprietor of the barren fig tree I still " dig 
about and dung " this incorrigible rose. 

Last year I sowed Single Dahlias in the bare spaces 
in this untoward rose bed, and when these and the two 
obliging white roses blossomed together I looked with 
complacency upon the effect and thanked Heaven that 
matters were no worse. Meantime my flower-loving 
neighbor, summer after summer, is bringing Perpetual 
Roses into perfect bloom — red roses, pink roses, and 
roses of waxy whiteness — large, fragrant, and alto- 
gether exquisite ! To walk among his Tea Roses and 
sniff the scented air is like going out to " afternoon 
tea." The fine foliage of his bushes (in itself only less 
beautiful than their bloom) is the result of neither 
hellebore, insect powder, nor emulsion, but is simply 
kept immaculate with pure cold water. At early morn- 
ing the bushes are vigorously showered. At nightfall 
the ever-ready hose is again in play. Under this heroic 
treatment the red spider gives up the fight and hostile 
insects of every variety hide their diminished heads. 
For the rest I think this marvelous success (which ex- 
tends to every plant, shrub, and tree in his garden) is 
mainly due to a wise understanding of their individual 
needs, a fond love of them all, and a never-tiring pa- 
tience. I have never cared for the Standard Roses. 
Like boys walking on stilts their performance is odd, 
but unbecoming. 

From Isaiah's day to our own the Rose has been 

8i 



A Garden with House Attached 



well praised by poets. Here are some of the many- 
stanzas, lines, and couplets that celebrate this beautiful 
Queen : 

" The desert shall blossom as the rose." 

— Isaiah. 

Before the Hebrew poet sung Eve was thus pic- 
tured in paradise: 

■' Veiled in a cloud of fragrance where she stood 
Half-spied, so thick the roses blushing round 
About her glowed." 

— Milton. 

" Gather ye rosebuds while ye may ; 
Old Time is still a-flying, 
And that same flower that smiles today 
Tomorrow may be dying." 

— Herrick. 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose 
By any other name would smell as sweet." 

" But earthlier happy is the rose distilled 
Than that which, withering on the virgin stem, 
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness." 

— Shakespeare. 

" Die of a rose in aromatic pain." 

— Pope. 

" The budding rose above the rose full blown." 

— Wordsworth. 

" The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew." 

— Scott. 

" As though a rose should shut and be a bud again." 

— Keats. 
" You may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and 
flowers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant 
heart for more than the sweet breath of his beloved rose." — Janie. 



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A Garden with House Attached 



There Is an Eastern legend telling that when Para- 
dise was fading from earth an angel plucked and saved 
a single rose, which from that day has transmitted to its 
kind an immortal fragrance. 

No other flower has so many intimate relations to 
our humanity. It goes to the altar with the bride — to 
the tomb with the dead. Young happy hearts rejoice 
at its coming, and aged pulses ("slowed down" by 
Time's relentless hand) quicken anew with memories 
of long-past Junes. In the primal garden Eve herself 
must have given it its lovely, fitting name, and Juliet 
was wrong — by no " other " would it " smell as sweet." 



83 



CHAPTER X 

Border Bulbs 

THE Salvias, grouped in the perennial border, 
make a fine color show. Coming when the 
earlier brightness of the season has passed, their 
scarlet clumps last from late August to the time of 
frost. Raised from seed their flowering season Is 
briefer, and, as the plants are comparatively inexpen- 
sive, it is well to get their full worth by setting out well- 
grown Salvia plants In early June. 

The Gladiolus is another effective flower, and should 
find place in the perennial borders. Plant bulbs about 
the middle of May, and again in July, and thus secure 
a long flowering time, as a light frost does no harm to 
the plant. Gladiolus prefers a light loam, or a moist 
sandy soil. Fresh manure will prove injurious. Mr. 
Allen tells us. In his book on " Bulbs, etc.," that " flow- 
ering bulbs of this plant may be produced from seed 
with a certainty of a greater variety and a chance for 
some remarkable forms. There Is," declares he, "no 
other pleasure in gardening equal to that which comes 
from the growing of Gladiolus from seed." It is 
claimed for the Gladiolus that if cut for decorative use 
when the first flower on the stalk opens the spike will 
develop better in water than if left out In the open sun. 
I have no experimental knowledge of this assertion. 
Take up early in October, and store bulbs In cellar. 

"The Gladiolus belongs to the genera Iridaceae. 

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A Garden with House Attached 



The genus contains about ninety species, nearly all of 
which are natives of the Cape of Good Hope." 

The Tuberose may be used in the garden with the 
same effect as the Gladiolus. Mexico is the land of its 
nativity, and two species make up the genus. In a 
quaint old book published in 1629 and entitled "The 
Garden of Pleasant Flowers " it is classed with the 
" Greater Indian Knobbed Hyacinth." " I have," says 
Parkinson (an old-time author), "thought it best to 
begin with this Jacinth (Hyacinth) because it is the 
greatest and highest, and also because the flowers hereof 
are in some likeness neare unto a Daffodille, although 
his root be tuberous, and not bulbous, as the rest are. 
The Indian Jacinth hath a thicke knobbed roote, yet 
formed into several heades, somewhat like unto bulbous 
rootes, with many thick fibres at the bottom of them. 
The toppes of the stalkes," he goes on to inform us, 
" are garnished with many faire, large, white flowers, 
each whereof are composed of six leaves, lying spread 
open as the flowers of the white Daffodille, with some 
short threads in the middle, and of a very sweet scent, 
or rather strong and headey." 

As may be seen in the above statement the Tuberose 
was first known as a "Jacinth" (Hyacinth) and was 
at that time a single flower. The double variety was 
raised as a seedling by M. Le Cour of Ley den, in Hol- 
land, who for many years would not under any circum- 
stances part with a root of it. Even if after propa- 
gating a desired quantity, there was a surplus, he would 

85 



A Garden with House Attached 



cause every tuber to be cut in pieces and destroyed, in 
order to be the only possessor of so valuable a plant, 
and one which he considered the finest in the world. 

The Tuberose is a gross feeder, and succeeds best 
in light loam, but will grow in any moist rich soil. 

Its complete requisites are heat, water, and manure. 
If these are proportionate, no matter how much there 
may be, the plant will consume it. 

And here is an incident in Tuberose culture (backed 
by good authority) where Nature, scorning slower 
methods of evolution, " got on a hustle " and produced a 
new variety on the spot. I copy it verbatim from Mr. 
Allen's book : " In 1 870 John Henderson of Flushing, N. 
Y. (a Tuberose cultivator), discovered growing in his 
field a number of plants of strong habit of growth, and 
with dark broad foliage. These he determined to keep 
apart from his main stock in order to see what the re- 
sult would be. 

" Cultivating them in the same manner as his other 
Tuberose bulbs he discovered a distinct type of dwarf 
habit and much larger flowers. This he at once named 
the ' Pearl,' and from the then small stock the trade 
in what is known as ' Excelsior Pearl ' is now wholly 
supplied. The Pearl is the favorite of the buyer, and 
takes the first place in the seedsman's catalogue." 

The Single Dahlia, flowering as it does after the 
early summer beauties have had their day, is an inex- 
pensive " stop-gap " for the perennial border. One 
may plant, in late April, kept-over bulbs or propagate 

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A Garden with House Attached 



from seed sown first of May, and sure to flower the 
same year. The Nicotiana, though an annual, may 
be used freely in the perennial border. It is an evening 
bloomer and opens an hour or two before sunset, and 
looks and smells its divinest by the light of the full 
round moon. The young plants take kindly to removal, 
and may, with care, be changed from seed bed to border 
while flowering. 



87 



CHAPTER XI 

Annuals 

A WELL-ORDERED garden is, In a measure, 
dependent upon the annuals, coming in bloom 
(as they do) after most of the perennials have 
had their short summer hour. 

As February days lengthen the seedsman's cata- 
logues come pouring in. 

Turning a resolute back on the allurements and 
temptations of " Prize Collections " I find it safer to 
pin my hopes to some well-tried seedsman, and selecting 
in accordance with experience and the length of my 
purse, send in an early order. Time was when I an- 
ticipated the season by starting, in early March, win- 
dow boxes of asters, petunias, cosmos, and nasturtiums ; 
experience has since taught me to await the slower seed 
time appointed for me by wise Mother Nature and sow 
in the open about the first week in May. The nas- 
turtiums and sweet peas may be soaked, over night and 
put in earlier, the latter the moment frost is out of the 
ground, the former about mid-April. 

If one can command a cold frame still earlier sow- 
ing of transplantable annuals is desirable. Seedlings 
thus raised are hardier than window growths and may 
be set in the open bed before May is over; with the 
house-sown annual one loses more of vigor than is 
gained by " forehandedness." 

Most annuals may be sown in the seed bed, which 

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is the necessary appendage to the show beds — indeed, 
all excepting the cosmos and poppy, which cannot well 
bear removal. The transplanting may be done late in 
June, and, indeed, if a cloudy day be chosen for the 
work, on any afternoon throughout the summer. I 
have found that not only annuals but herbaceous plants, 
vines, and even shrubs may be moved at one's con- 
venience without regard to the popular idea which 
restricts one to spring and fall transplanting. My own 
method is — first, have a coolish cloudy day, then dig 
holes and put oceans of water in them. Having made 
the soil of the seedling quite wet one may keep a little 
ball of it about the plant. Cover quickly with moist 
loam, then screen from sun with newspaper, a big 
basket, or a box in which airholes have been made, and 
keep well-watered until apparently rooted. A few 
high-growing annuals, as marigolds, coxcombs, zinnias, 
and four-o'clocks, may be used with effect in the empty 
spaces in perennial beds, where Oriental poppies and 
candidums have died down and have had their stalks 
cut. For this purpose let not the stiff-necked zinnia be 
despised. Easy of culture, ready to move at any date, 
and without a moment's notice and (if one save seed) 
in such cheap abundance that the undesirable colors 
and shades may be pulled up as soon as the blossom 
shows its face and cast aside with the weeds. The 
dreadful magentas are never once permitted a foothold 
in my garden; the whites, yellows, true pinks, salmon- 
pinks, and bright scarlets are all effective. 



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That out-of-date annual, dear to our grandmothers, 
the Four-O'Clock should find a place in the perennial 
border. As will be inferred from its name, it is an 
afternoon bloomer. " Motley is its wear," and its 
color surprises more than repays one for the pains of 
raising. It has a faint delicate odor all its own, recall- 
ing the enchanted gardens of one's childhood, and that 
time of day when " school was out," and one went 
skipping home to pull nosegays. I lack space to give 
here the long list of desirable annuals. 

Most of these are low-growing and look best in their 
own beds, as Mignonette, Lady Slipper, Escholzia, Pop- 
pies, and so on. Centaurea (Bachelor's Button) should 
especially have an entire bed to itself. 

Mrs. Pratt tells us that in Germany it has been 
brought from the field to the garden bed, and by the 
gardener's skill has increased the number of its flow- 
erets, and sometimes varied their hue. 

" It is the pet of the German ladies, who have given 
it the pretty name of Bluet. With us it is sometimes 
known as the ' Corn Flower.' " 

The Centaurea, according to Pliny, " is that famous 
hearbe wherewith Charon, the Centaure, as the report 
goeth, was cured; at what time having entertained 
Hercules in his cabin he would needs be handhng and 
tampering with the weapons of his said guest so long, 
untille one of the arrows light upon his foote and 
wounded him dangerously." 

To this legend the plant may probably refer its name. 

90 




Winter Corner at The Lilacs 



A Garden with House Attached 



Some of the low-growing annuals may effectively 
border the show beds where late in May the geraniums 
are set on the removal of spring bulbs, which I find it 
best to lift and dry off for fall planting. 

Clumps of Narcissi and Daffodils may remain per- 
manently in the borders to make their summer growth, 
and the half-grown bulbs may be put in beds made in 
some out-of-the-way place for their especial propaga- 
tion. 

In central positions on the lawn build raised circles 
for show bulbs ; border with stone. Avoid turf borders, 
which imply a continual fight with tough grass roots. 

Have good loam, sifted fine, and well enriched with 
old cow manure. Make holes four inches deep, and 
put in each a sprinkling of fine sand to prevent the bulb 
coming in direct contact with manure in the soil. Plant 
bulbs in October, but do not cover with the final dry 
leaves and pine boughs until the very last of November, 
and be sure to uncover in spring as soon as the young 
sprouts push up for the sun. 

In summer, with two or three choice cannas in the 
center, some bright geraniums, and coleuses next, and a 
filling out of asters, petunias, and low Drummond 
Phlox from the seed bed, the circles will make a lovely 
show of color up to the very last day of summer and all 
through the month of September, and, on their ground- 
work of green lawn, be indeed fair to see. In back 
places of the garden sow seed for flower-cutting ; among 
the best of these is the "White Branching Aster," the 

91 



A Garden with House Attached 



single Dahlia, and (if one can bring enough of these 
beauties into bloom) the white Cosmos. 

The yellow Daffodil, although in our climate it 
does not, as in Shakespeare's England, 

" Come before the swallow dares 
And take the winds of March with beauty," 

is among the earliest of our spring flowers and laughs 
our raw east winds to scorn. 

"Yellow," says Mrs. Jameson, " symboHzes the 
goodness of God." We cannot be better reminded of 
this divine attribute than by the Daffodil's smiling face 
looking up to us from the edge of perennial beds. The 
single white variety of Narcissi, known as Poet's Nar- 
cissus, must, I think, be the identical flower into which 
the vain beautiful youth of mythological notoriety (en- 
amored of his own image reflected in a fountain) was 
changed. The gods did well by him. To this day it 
makes our May-time sweet, and as a cut flower it is 
perfection itself. Later, as the plants die down, one 
can remove its dead tops and sow Shirley Poppies above 
the bulbs, while they increase beneath and get ready for 
the next " spring opening." 

The Asphodel of the Greek poets, by some declared 
to be the Day Lily, is by others supposed to be the 
Narcissus Poeticiis. 

The Tulip, as a bulb, is historically famous. It was 
brought to Europe from Persia in 1559 and was culti- 
vated at Constantinople. From this city it found Its 
way over Europe under the name of the Turkish Tulip. 

92 



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About a century after its first introduction it be- 
came, as we know, the object of commercial speculation. 
It is said that enormous prices were paid for a single 
bulb, and that as much as $3,000 was offered and re- 
fused in one instance. Speculators were even more ex- 
cited and reckless than the growers, and many of the 
Dutch florists were ruined by their ventures. 

This mania happily wore itself out and the industry 
finally assumed a healthy tone. At the present time, 
according to the statement of Mr. C. L. Allen, to whom 
I am indebted for the above facts, more than seven 
hundred acres of Dutch soil are devoted to Tulip cul- 
ture. 

Tulips have been grown from the seed by the mil- 
lions. The named varieties are so great that it would 
be impossible to enumerate. One dealer alone boasts 
of more than eighteen hundred varieties. 

The seed bed's important part it is to furnish fresh 
plants to take the place of such perennials and biennials 
as are winter-killed or have outlived their flowering 
time. 

It should have light rich soil and, if possible, should 
have half the day in shade. 



93 



CHAPTER XII 

Climbers 

THE originator of the " Mansion House " was 
compelled to obey literally the scripture injunc- 
tion and " build upon a rock." A substratum of 
that safe " foundation " lay directly beneath the site 
chosen for his home and must have been hewn or ex- 
ploded out previous to the placing of its corner stone. 
Consequently within a good foot or more of the house 
there is found but a thin layer of soil, where climbers may 
not obtain a foothold. I had formerly great suc- 
cess with perennial vines and creepers, among them 
may be counted Bignonia Radicans (Trumpet Creeper) , 
"Baltimore Belle" (rose). Matrimony (now nearly 
obsolete), which I once trained with yellow Flow- 
ering Currant over the entire length and breadth 
of a veranda. This method of growing the Currant 
I claim as entirely my own. We latticed the piazza 
with copper wire, and its combination with the Matri- 
mony (or "Tea Vine") was most effective and made 
a very dense screen. My Prairie Rose was also a 
marked success. So was my Hop Vine, my Scarlet 
Honeysuckle, and a pink climbing rose given me by a 
neighbor. I cannot recall its name, but well remember 
how it ran riot over an entire lattice, arched over the 
long French window in my first parlor, and how the June 
west wind blew its petals in from the raised window, 
in scented showers, about the parlor floor. 

94 



A Garden with House Attached 



Among the annual vines I have had fine Coboea 
Scandens — climbing like "Jack's bean" to the very 
top of things. With Moonflower I have failed, al- 
though I soaked the big seed over night and sowed with 
great care. It is an exquisite flower, and I have seen It 
brought into beautiful bloom. The common native 
Morning Glory, which " grows and takes no care," as 
a matter of course does well with all. 

Not so the Japanese (Ipomoea Imperlalis). Lured 
by the seedsman's pictures of this wonder, year after 
year I waste good money on seed packets of that dis- 
appointing flower. My seed germinates after a fashion 
and sometimes I get a flower or two a trifle larger than 
those on the native vines, but about the same In color. 
Three summers ago I potted a seedling and gave it a 
small trellis. To my great delight it bore a few pre- 
cious flowers of cerulean hue daintily striped with 
white. Thus encouraged I still include Japanese Morn- 
ing Glories in my list of annuals, ordering them from 
one seedsman after another. If, peradventure, I might 
hit the man who furnishes the marvels which I have 
read about — the fluted, fringed, and ralnbow-hued, 
the bona fide Ipomoea Imperialis. 

When, fifteen years ago, after a long absence, I 
went for a summer outing to my native town it was the 
time of Honeysuckles — the evening air was loaded 
with their perfume, for there not to have a Honey- 
suckle is to be poor indeed. 

Glad was I to walk in the June moonlight and again 

95 



A Garden with House Attached 



revel in the dear familiar odor. When I again left my 
old home I bore with me three thrifty roots of this 
lovely vine given me by kind friends. These were care- 
fully planted in a sheltered corner of our Cambridge 
garden. From that hour I have had Honeysuckles to 
spare. Grown to big precious vines the three came with 
us to this garden, where they now cover four wooden 
trellises, a bit of the garden wall, and an irregular arch 
at the end of our piazza. Their runners have supplied 
the entire neighborhood with young vines, twelve of 
which have already come into bloom, not counting one 
in Maiden and another in Chelsea. Last winter in com- 
mon with many others I suffered a partial loss of my 
Honeysuckles from winter-killing. The roots were, 
however, still intact, and, though we missed their full 
bloom, their foliage is now (middle of August) as fine 
as ever. 

It is but lately that I have learned that the Honey- 
suckle and the Woodbine of England are one and the 
same. 

The English Honeysuckle blooms monthly; the 
Japanese Honeysuckle is not a monthly bloomer. It 
blossoms with the June roses, and sometimes bears a 
spray or two of bloom in late autumn. It differs in 
other ways from the English — has not its pink shading 
nor its dainty scent. Milton, in Lycidas, calls it " the 
well-attired Woodbine " — perhaps this is because of its 
continuous flowering. The oriental variety has in this 
day superseded the English. More rapid in growth 

96 



A Garden with House Attached 



and easier of culture it falls in with the hurrying senti- 
ment of the time. It has been my good fortune to pos- 
sess in my day three English Honeysuckles — now, 
mine are all Japanese. The poets, from Chaucer down 
to Wordsworth, have sung the praises of the Woodbine. 

The elder poet drew his image of constant affection 
from the clinging nature of the Woodbine (or " bind ") 
and its enduring hold on the wedded tree. Contrary to 
the habit of most other vines the Honeysuckle follows, 
in its windings, the sun. 

The Weigelia, a shrub belonging to the Honey- 
suckle family, was introduced from China, and is named 
after Weigel, a German naturalist. 

Here end my hints in regard to the selection and 
culture of such everyday herbaceous plants, shrubs, an- 
nuals, and vines as are attainable to the garden-lover 
of moderate means. Many rarer specimens are (as a 
matter of course) within reach of one with a longer 
purse, who holds (with me) that Victor Hugo " hit 
the nail on the head " when he paradoxically asserted 
that " the beautiful is as useful as the useful, perhaps 
more so." 

To me one of the beautiful uses of flowers is to cut 
them for interior decoration. 

Our grandmothers had no vocation for out-of-door 
life. A garden was to them a place to " grow things " 
in, to work and walk in, but to sit in ? never ! All the 
same the big " bowpots " were duly filled, and although 
less artistically arranged than the vases of today, were 

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A Garden with House Attached 



a part of the housewife's plan of living, and bore wit- 
ness to the divine truth that " man cannot live by bread 
alone." 

Lafcadio Hearn tells us that " to the Japanese the 
arranging of a bough of blossoms is a serious act of 
life. That the placing of flowers is indeed an exact 
science, to the study of which a man may devote seven 
years, even fourteen years, before he will be acknowl- 
edged a master." 

As a rule avoid painted china vases in arranging cut 
flowers. Let the vase be artistic in shape and well 
adapted to the flowers it holds, but never so gay in 
color as to rival them. Single flowers arrange best, 
and, as a general rule, put each variety in a glass by 
itself. Roses, Nasturtiums, and Sweet Peas seem es- 
pecially well-suited to table decoration. They are all 
*' good enough to eat." 



98 



CHAPTER XIII 

Gardens " in Spain " 

THE poorest of us have our " castles in Spain." 
Why not have our gardens f Such a garden I 
have " in my mind's eye," but before I make 
bold to describe this airy creation (which, for lack of 
leisure and " hard cash," is doomed never to material- 
ize) let me explain that my garden in Spain is not 
purely ornamental; that Its beds and walks, although 
tastefully laid out, are strictly devoted to " the useful," 
to culinary and medicinal ends. In earlier times our 
Materia Medica (including though it did the unsavory 
pills and potions now become somewhat out of date) 
pinned its faith largely to Nature's ready-to-hand spe- 
cifics. " Simples," as these herbs were then called 
(probably in contradistinction to the complex prepara- 
tions of the doctor) , were even in our own generation 
zealously gathered by our grandmothers; and I well 
remember the time when to be without dried herbs — 
Boneset, Hoarhound, Wormwood, Motherwort, Cat- 
nip, and Gentian — was to be shiftless indeed. 

In laying out this imaginary garden plot I have 
covered a good half acre of rich soil, which I have, in 
fancy, divided into pretty beds of various size and 
shape, with neat intersecting gravel walks. There I 
have sown or planted such herbs as once hung in gener- 
ous bunches, drying leisurely, in all respectable garrets, 
when such minor ailments as "flesh is heir to " were cured 

99 



tofC. 



A Garden with House Attached 



on the spot and only on alarming occasions the doctor, 
with his pill boxes, his blisters, and lancet, called In. 

Various are the uses and virtues of these medicinal 
herbs. " Gentian," says an old herbalist, " will worke 
admirable cures for the stomache and lungs. It is also 
a special counter-poison against any poison, as against 
the violence of a mad dog's tooth." 

Modem physicians find one species of Gentian 
soporific and use it to procure sleep for the weary suf- 
ferer. G. Latea is the Gentian of commerce, and is 
used as a tonic. The old herbalists commend the Com- 
mon Centaury as a cure for jaundice and ague, and tell 
us that an infusion of the plant removes freckles. Of 
Jacob's Ladder (a plant of the genus Smilax) Pliny 
tells us that the name by which it Is known to us Is 
derived from Polimis (war), because two kings having 
each claimed the merit of discovering the great uses of 
the herb had recourse to arms to settle the disputed 
question. 

The old " Simplers " (herbalists) commend Penny 
Royal tea as a remedy for coughs and colds — " goode 
and wholesome for the lungs" — and add that "a 
garlande of the plant worn about the heade will cure 
giddeness." 

Foxglove (Digitalis) was praised by old herbalists 
for Its various medicinal uses, "divers having been cured 
thereby of falling sickness." Later, skillful practition- 
ers have discovered its power over the action of the 



A Garden with House Attached 



heart, and Digitalis has come to be a highly-valued 
medicine. 

Common Vervain rivals the Mistletoe in its occult 
usages. " Many old wives' fables tending to witch- 
craft and sorcerie," says Gerarde, " are written of Ver- 
vayne." 

"The Druids," according to Pliny, often used Ver- 
vain in " casting lots, telling fortunes, and foreshadow- 
ing future national events." Its gathering was attended 
with peculiar ceremonies. " It was to be sought for at 
the rising of the great Dog-star, and when plucken an 
offering of honeycomb was to be made to the Earth 
as a recompense for depriving her of so goodly an 
herb." The ancients believed that " if the hall or 
dining chamber be sprinkled with the water wherein 
Vervain lay steeped all that sate at the table should be 
very pleasant, and make merry more jocundly." 

The Romans considered it a sacred plant, placing 
it in the hands of ambassadors who were about to enter 
on important embassies; and the floors of their houses 
were rubbed with Vervain to drive away evil spirits. 
In England, at a later time, the plant was called "Holy 
herh," and had its superstitious usages intimating a be- 
lief in its magical properties. Of late years it is there 
tied round the neck as a charm to cure ague. 

Vervain is still believed to possess great medicinal 
virtues, and is described as a remedy for thirty different 
maladies. It had of old the expressive name of " Sim- 
pier's Joy." 



A Garden with House Attached 



The Verbena tribe of this plant is cultivated in our 
gardens for its showy clusters of pink, purple, white, 
and dazzling scarlet blossoms, and the Lemon variety 
for its delicately fragrant leaves. 

According to the old " Simplers " " the roote of the 
Caraway may be eaten like the parsnip, and helpeth 
digestion and strengtheneth the stomaches of ancient 
(aged) people exceedingly, and they need not make a 
whole meal of them neither." 

In some countries Angelica is (we are told) called 
by a name signifying the *' Holy Ghost." In ancient 
times its leaf stalks were blanched like those of celery 
and eaten as a salad, or they were dried and preserved 
as a sweet-meat, " Candied Angelica." The Laplander 
believes that the use of Angelica prolongs life, and 
chews it as he would do tobacco. 

The Highlanders have the same opinion of the vir- 
tues of Lovage. The simplers have advised " gentle- 
women " "to nourse it up in their kitchen gardens to 
helpe their own family and their poore neighbors that 
are faire remote from phisitions and Chirurgeons." 
They also affirm that " if a man carry about him An- 
gelica root the witches doe have no power over him." 

The nourishment in the roots of wild herbs has 
often kept the Indian tribes from starvation in times of 
scarcity of game, when they had to depend on these 
and on crows, eagles, and devil fish to sustain life while 
awaiting the " coming of the salmon," that in fishing 
time leaped in prodigious numbers in their rivers. 



A Garden with House Attached 



I remember reading of an especially providential 
instance where in a region desolated by grasshoppers 
the people were, for the time, sustained on the roots 
of herbs which these greedy cormorants had, necessa- 
rily, left intact. 

For an interesting and exhaustive treatment of this 
branch of botanical information the reader is referred 
to Anna Pratt's " British Flowering Plants," a work 
from which much of my own knowledge has been ob- 
tained. 

" If," says an old writer, " I shoulde set down all the 
sortes of herbes that are usually gathered for sallets I 
should not only speake of garden herbes, but of many 
herbes which grow wilde in the fieldes, or else be but 
weedes in a garden." 

George Herbert, in his " Priest to the Temple," 
while enumerating the duties of the parson and his 
family, thus writes: " For salves his wife seeks not the 
city, but prefers her gardens and fields before all out- 
landish gums; and surely hyssop, valerian, adder's 
tongue, melilot, and St. John's-wort, made into a salve, 
and elder, comfrey, and smallage made into poultice, 
have done great and rare cures." And he piously adds : 
" In curing of any, the Parson and his family, use to 
premise with prayer; for this is to cure like a parson, 
and this raiseth the action from the Shop to the Church." 

Catmint or Catnip is the " New Wine " of the 
Grimalkin family. It is said that it is not intoxicating 

103 



A Garden with House Attached 



to them until its odor is perceptible to their smell by 
breaking or bruising the plant. 

Catnip is fabled to make the most gentle human 
beings fierce and wrathful, and it is related of a certain 
pusillanimous hangman that he only gained courage to 
perform the duties of his wretched vocation by chewing 
catnip root. 

One who experimented with Catnip as an incite- 
ment to ferocity assures us that " for 24 hours after a 
dose of this root she retained a perfect equanimity of 
temper and feeling." 

• But enough space has already been given to the 
healing herbs that plant themselves in my Garden in 
Spain, and now let me tell you of the dear little imagi- 
nary beds devoted to my sweet-scented " pot-herbs." 
In these I please myself with tending Coriander, Mint, 
Anise, and Cumin, Dill, Lovage, Thyme, Lavender, 
Angelica, Sweet Sicily, Rosemary, Comfrey, Fennel, 
Sweet Basil, Penny Royal, and Balm. 

Here, too, may be found less poetical herbs of solid 
worth in the cuisine — as Sage, Parsley, Summer Sa- 
vory, Sweet Marjoram, and so on. Many fragrant 
pot-herbs are dear to my heart simply from long asso- 
ciation, others are widely distinguished by historical 
eminence. 

Coriander has the especial claim of " long descent." 
Its pedigree dates back to the time of the Egyptian 
Pharaohs, and it is possibly coeval with the Sphinx and 
the pyramids. It would seem to have been in common 

104 



A Garden with House Attached 



use among the Hebrews at the time of their exodus 
from Egypt, as Moses, in the Book of Numbers, tells 
us that Manna was in appearance like Coriander seed. 
It is said to have been in use by the ancients both as a 
condiment and a medicine. In our day it forms an in- 
gredient in Curry powder, and is used in confectionery. 

Mint, Rue, and Cumin have each a delightful flavor 
of antiquity. The tithe or tax upon these ancient herbs 
paid so scrupulously by the Pharisees bears testimony 
to their commercial value full nineteen centuries ago. 
To think of these miserable hypocrites having mint- 
sauce to their " spring lamb " and, possibly, " pepper- 
mint creams " to their dessert! It is, however, good to 
know that the dear little babies of the time were priv- 
ileged with anise seed tea in the stress of colic. How 
bitter-flavored cumin served them I cannot say, but it is 
to be hoped that these " Scribes and Pharisees " (whom 
even their imitators frankly anathematize) what time 
they had " spring feelin's " were not let off with home- 
made decoctions of innocent " Simples," but were mer- 
cilessly dosed, by the " Holy Land " doctors, with nasty 
potions of Senna and Salts. 

Lavender, Rosemary, Basil, and Sweet Marjoram 
have all been celebrated in verse. Keats has sent cold 
shivers down our backs with his gruesome story of 
" Isabella " and her flower-pot of Sweet Basil, with its 
ghastly hiding: 

" And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun, 
And she forgot the blue above the trees, 



105 



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And she forgot the dells where waters run, 
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze; 

She had no knowledge when the day was done, 
And the new moon she saw not : but in peace 

Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, 

And moisten'd it with tears unto the core." 

Sweet Marjoram in England produces its fragrant 
blossom, at such elevations as to have gained the pretty 
name " Joy of the Mountains." Shakespeare has 
added interest to it by making it the password in the 
tragedy of " King Lear." 

In fancy one can see the faithful Edgar with his 
mutilated father, the duke, climbing to the " dread 
summit of that chalky bourn," and hear Edgar saying 
to his father : 

"Hark! do you hear the sea?" 

" The swete marjoroms," says an old writer, " are 
not only much used to please the outward senses in 
nosegaies, and in the windows of houses, as also in 
swete powders, swete bags, and swete washing waters, 
but are also of much use in physick, to comfort the in- 
ward members." 

Caraway calls up the cookies dear to childhood, and 
a spray of green Fennel brings back, as if by touch of 
the enchanter's wand — "Minister Garner" in the old 
meetin'-house under the big "sounding board" (re- 
lentless as fate) pursuing his theme to the bitter end, 
while seated, in the pen-like box pew, beside our devout 
grandmother, we tone ourselves down to the solemn oc- 

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casion, with no higher aspiration than the wish to be 
butterflies saihng gayly in the outside sunshine. Virtue 
has, at last, its reward. At about the minister's sopo- 
rific " fifthly " our grandmother catches herself nod- 
ding. Opening her roomy black silk workbag she gives 
herself a saving nibble of fennel and passes a delicious 
spray of this spicy herb to each of her three grand- 
children. 

Dear old grandma ! a full half century ago her soul 
went home to God, yet still I recall my childish picture 
of her angel sweeping with wide wings the blue eternal 
spaces, with never-withering sprays of fennel in her 
hand. 

One lingers lovingly over these pretty " Herbs O' 
Grace," of which the half has not here been told. But, 
already it is time to write jinis at the end of this vagary 
— " My Garden in Spain." 



107 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Cerebral Processes of Plants 

I FIND it good to think of plants as mysterious fel- 
low-existences, about which the half is not yet 
known — to speculate on their psychological prop- 
erties — on what has been called "The cerebral pro- 
cesses of plants." 

Darwin has thus expressed himself on this inter- 
esting question : 

" It has," he says, " always pleased me to exalt 
plants in the scale of organized beings, and I therefore 
felt especial pleasure in showing how many and what 
admirably well-adapted movements the tip of a root 
possesses. ... It was impossible in accordance 
with the principle of evolution," he goes on to say, " to 
account for climbing plants having been developed in 
so many widely different groups, unless all plants pos- 
sess some slight power of movement of an analogous 
kind. This I proved to be the case." 

In his " Power of Movement in Plants " he still 
farther expresses this conviction: "The tips of all 
young growing parts of the higher plants continually 
revolve, bowing successively towards every point of the 
compass." And he declares that " it is hardly an ex- 
aggeration to say that the tip of the radicle endowed 
with such diverse kinds of sensitiveness and having the 
power to direct the movements of the adjoining parts, 
acts like the brain of one of the lower animals, the 

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brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, 
receiving impressions from the sense-organs and direct- 
ing the several movements." 

Great truths gain ground by inches. This assump- 
tion of the great scientist is not yet generally admitted, 
although, as I think, well established by experimental 
proof. An interesting paper in " Forest and Garden," 
prepared by T. D. Ingersoll of Erie, Pennsylvania, and 
entitled " Signs of Intelligence in a Madeira Vine." 

I here copy verbatim: 

" Two or three years ago I began, without any great 
seriousness, an experiment on some Madeira Vines, 
which presently began to prove more interesting than 
was anticipated. Before this my attention had been 
attracted to peculiar movements made by this plant in 
the course of its spiral ascent of a stick. If allowed to 
grow a few inches above the support the extremity of 
the plant will sway backward and forward a few hours 
and then will enter upon a regular revolving movement, 
always from right to left, or contrary to the direction in 
which the hands of a watch move. One revolution 
consumes about three hours. One of my plants began 
to grow on April first, and at the end of fourteen days 
was twelve inches tall and showing signs of uneasiness — 
now bending away from a vertical position and again 
standing nearly upright. On the i6th it was eighteen 
inches high, and, being too top-heavy to stand erect, 
it began to fall away from the pot, which stood upon a 
table, towards the floor. This was done gradually and 

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apparently with conscious care. It seemed to feel at 
times that it was letting itself down too fast, when it 
would stop with a jerk, like a nodding child half 
asleep. When near the floor it began describing el- 
lipses, about three inches in diameter, with its upturned 
extremity. On the 19th it was twenty-six inches in 
length, and would describe a crescent-shaped loop, sev- 
enteen inches in length by six inches in breadth, in about 
two hours. On the 23d it was three feet four inches 
long, revolving with less regularity, and at times 
drooped as if weary or discouraged in trying to find 
something upon which it might entwine itself. Thus 
far no opportunity had been given the plant to climb, 
since it was desirable to see what it would do to meet 
the absence of some support. On the 26th a new route 
of traverse was undertaken at 6 a.m., and at nine o'clock 
the extremity, which was near the floor at the left side of 
the pot, had described a circle six inches in diameter. 
It then slowly swept around to the right side and made 
another irregular circle, and then returned to the left 
side of the pot; these movements occupied just twelve 
hours. The track of the tip of the vine was carefully 
traced with a pencil upon a sheet of paper laid beneath 
it, and the entire line of traverse measured no less than 
six feet nine inches. During the evening the plant be- 
came quiet, and probably remained so all night. At 
10 A.M. the next day, however, it began pointing its 
tip in various directions, and at noon assumed the form 
of a corkscrew, about four inches long, which posture 



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it retained until night and then straightened out. On 
May first the vine was hfted and tied to a vertical sup- 
port — a large thread — where it remained entirely 
quiescent for two days. Then it began growing again 
as if it had recovered from what had been for six days 
a condition near the point of death. 

"Another vine was observed carefully during sev- 
eral days of cloudy weather. It uncoiled itself from the 
stick and reached away toward the light at an angle 
with the horizon of forty-five degrees. It was carefully 
recoiled about its stick, but after it had grown some 
three inches more it unwound itself and stood away 
toward the window as before. Time after time during 
the continuance of the cloudy weather it was brought 
back to its support but invariably left it. Then fol- 
lowed a fortnight of bright sunny weather, during which 
the vine showed no disposition to escape from its stick 
or stop its twining growth. Attempts were made to in- 
duce another plant to twine in the direction opposite to 
its normal one, but no ingenuity could deceive the plant 
as to its proper course. All the experiments seemed to 
show how much like an animal was the plant in its sensi- 
tiveness, not only to changes of light and temperature, 
but to harsh treatment. Whenever restrained or forced, 
no matter how tenderly, out of its natural method of 
growth, all progress was retarded and the health of the 
vine disturbed in a marked degree. Plants seem to be 
creatures of feeling and the similarity of movement 
and apparent purpose between them and the lower 



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orders of animals are used to strengthen their theory 
by those who hold to the doctrine of the identity of life 
in the two kingdoms." 

Dr. Dwight, in his paper in " Scribner's " entitled 
" Right-handedness " still further develops the theory 
of brain power in plants. "The spiral growth," says 
this writer, " of a graceful climbing plant, at first sight, 
suggests nothing like right or left-handedness, but the 
analogy when once seen is very striking. As the young 
plant begins its upward course it is clear that to make 
the coils which it is its nature to describe, it must either 
turn to the right or left. It might be supposed that its 
deviation to either side is the result of an accident, but 
this is impossible, for, though the individual plants of 
some kinds do twine indiscriminately to either side, 
some only curl to the right and others to the left. More 
remarkable still, some species twist in the opposite di- 
rection to that of the larger families to which they be- 
long, and finally, sometimes a particular plant grows 
the wrong way. This is analogous to being left- 
handed." 

From Mrs, Pratt's " Flowering Plants of England " 
I take this account of the curious movements of the 
seed-vessel of the " Musk Stork's Bill." 

It is a relation of Mr. Mallet of Dublin of his per- 
sonal observation of the capsule movements of this 
remarkable flower. " Each seed," says the writer, " of 
which there are five to each flower. Is enclosed in a 
carpel, attached by its upper extremity to a tail or awn, 



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which possesses the most wonderful hygrometric sensi- 
bility, as, indeed, does every other part of the plant. 
These five awns lie in grooves in the receptacle of the 
flowers, and this receptacle is central to and is the axis 
of all parts of the flower and the fruit, 

"When the whole system has arrived at a certain 
point of aridity the awns, which are provided with an ex- 
quisite power of torsion, hoist themselves out from 
their grooves and at the same moment a number of 
downy filaments, hidden in the back or inward face of 
the awns, bristle forth; they all now become detached 
and fall to the ground. But here they still continue 
to twist, and from the position in which they always 
lie keep tumbling over and over, and thus receding from 
the parent plant until at length they become perfect 
balloons, ready to be wafted away by every zephyr." 

The theory that " plants can see," or, at any rate, 
manage to find food and support by some special sense, 
which the unscientific mind cannot better name than to 
call it sight, has been corroborated in the " Rural Press " 
by Mrs. King, who thus describes her husband's ob- 
servation of this interesting habit on the part of a creep- 
ing plant in India : 

" He was sitting on the veranda, with one foot up 
against a large pillar near to which grows a kind of 
convolvulus. Its tendrils were leaning over into the 
veranda, and, to Robert's surprise, he presently noticed 
that they were visibly turning toward his leg. He 

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remained in the same position and In less than an hour 
the tendrils had laid themselves over his leg. 

" This was in the early morning, and when at break- 
fast he told me of this discovery we determined to make 
further experiments. When we went out into the ver- 
anda the tendrils had turned their heads back to the 
railing In disgust. We got a pole and leaned it up 
against the pillar quite twelve Inches from the nearest 
sprays of convolvulus. 

" In ten minutes they had begun to curve themselves 
in that direction and acted exactly as you might fancy 
a very slow snake would do if he wished to reach any- 
thing. The upper tendrils bent down, and the side ones 
curved themselves until they touched the pole, and in a 
few hours were twisted quite round it. 

" It was on the side away from the light, and, ex- 
cepting the faculty of sight, we can think of no other 
means by which the tendrils could be aware that the 
pole had been placed there. They had to turn away 
from the light to reach it, and they set themselves in 
motion visibly within a few minutes of the pole's being 
there." 

My own experience with climbing plants has long 
since convinced me that they have " a will of their 
own," and that if their will differs from my own no 
amount of coaxing will induce them to take the path 
which is laid out for them. 

Well, if plants had but tongues they could, no 
doubt, tell us things well worth hearing in regard to 
their special mode of existence. 

114 



CHAPTER XV 

"Auf Wiedersehen " 

IT seems but yesterday that the punctual year brought 
back her Daffodils — that Hyacinth and Tulip 

pushed up green shoots for the spring sunshine — 
and now the Syringa bushes are white with bloom. 

In one short week midsummer will have come, 
that beautiful holiday of the summer solstice, whose 
festal observance is, in England, of great antiquity. 

The old practice of lighting bonfires in London and 
In other towns (and even in villages) is probably a 
remnant of the pagan rites once observed on that day. 

Later, the Christian monks dedicated this festival 
to one of their saints, and, accordingly, the people on 
that day made their houses gay with St. John's-wort 
and other flowers and at evening kept the " vigil of St. 
John the Baptist," lighting bonfires in honor of this 
saint. Every man's door was then hung with birch 
boughs and lamps of glass, whose oil burnt on through 
the night. An old parish entry — dating so far back 
as the reign of Edward IVth — thus stands: "For 
birch at Midsummer VIII d"; and again, "Various 
payments for birch bowes at Midsummer." 

Old English poets commemorate in verse the 
hanging at this season of birch branches over the sign 
boards of shop doors. 

Perhaps in our increasing demand for holidays we 
may yet adopt this charming festival of our English 
forbears, as we have that of their Yule-tide. It would 

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fall at the same season as did that pretty Persian festi- 
val, " The Feast of Roses." 

Today, in after-dinner " idlesse," with the unread 
morning paper in my hand, I sit beneath the blossomed 
Tulip trees, taking in so much of the beauty and per- 
fection of the hour as my limited being will hold. 
Shadow and sunshine interchange upon the lush green 
lawn, where today the Syringa sprinkles its first light 
snow. The breath of blown Peonies scents the summer 
air along with the languorous odor of the mock-orange 
flowers. Yonder, in the old pear tree hard by the 
Lover's bowery walk, a happy thrush sings out his little 
heart while his silent mate broods patiently the family 
nest. A distant robin pipes cheerily among the apple 
boughs, and somewhere among the treetops a gurgling 
oriole sings — sings as if in this whole wide world of 
ours there were neither pain nor death, but only life, 
and joy, and never-ending summer. 

Last night a Damask Rose opened in the garden — 
" God's in his Heaven ; all's right with the world ! " 

For myself — attuned to the blessed influences of 
the hour — I am at peace with all mankind. My en- 
emies, one and all, are forgiven on the spot, and I 
meekly consider the advisability of " turning the other 
cheek" for a second "smite." For what saith the old 
herbalist — combining in his ancient book floriculture 
and ethical instruction? " Flowers, through their beau- 
tie, variety of color, and exquisite forme, doe bring to 
a liberal and gentlemanly minde the remembrance of 

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honestie, comeliness, and all kinds of virtues. For it 
woulde be an unseemly thing for him that dothe looke 
upon and handle faire and beautiful things to have 
his minde not faire, but jfilthy and depraved." 

The Japanese, in their days of heathendom, cele- 
brated with great care their ancient " Festival of De- 
parted Spirits." A fire was then built in front of every 
house in the empire as a signal or invitation for all the 
departed members of the house to revisit their old 
homes. 

So tonight, with pulses slowed down to peace, 
musing in the quiet of this sleepy garden, I keep the 
" Festival of Departed Spirits," and, signaling to the 
unseen, hear in the tender silence faint footfalls of the 
departed along the familiar garden ways. 

Said the dear Lady (who at one time in her life 
was much fascinated by Spiritualism, and wont to map 
out with great accuracy the " Undiscovered Country " 
with its pursuits and privileges), referring to that time 
when this house and garden should no longer know her 
in the flesh: "I shall not forget my home on earth, 
I shall still be around." 

And thou, "my summer child"* (best loved and 
last to go) , born with the roses and gifted with the 
sunny sweetness of a thousand Junes, but yesterday we 
trod together these garden paths, whose improvement 
was thy latest care. 



* Miss Bremer in " The Home." 

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The echo of thy parting footfall yet lingers in this 
garden, making it " holy ground." " They sin who tell 
us Love can die." 

"Auf wiedersehen," my " summer child." 



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PEC 20 J90* 



